As AIG celebrates its 100 birthday, Christina Lucas, General Manager for Bulgaria, shares more on the company's achievements and future

In 2019, AIG celebrates its centenary. What started as an American insurance company in Shanghai is now an international giant. AIG arrived in Bulgaria in 1996. Today it is a household name and the centre of innovation including BPO and industry digitisation.

We are talking about AIG's past, present and future with Christina Lucas, General Manager for Bulgaria. Previous posts included roles in Asia and Latin America.

What did AIG achieve in Bulgaria?

AIG was the first insurance company on the Bulgarian market owned by a foreign strategic investor, dating back to 1996, and led the market in providing innovative risk solutions for over 20 years. In 2014 we stood up a multinational Centre of Excellence in Sofia to serve our European customers in policy administration and claims settlement.Today the centre comprises about 500 professionals speaking over 15 different languages and providing services to thousands of AIG customers across Europe and the 100+ Network Partners around the world.

What makes you different from the other BPO organisations?

A critical differentiator for an insurance service centre is its ability to cope with the complexity of the insurance business. We support core business activities like claims settlement and policy servicing, which require a great deal of professional expertise and product understanding to deliver superior customer service. This creates numerous opportunities for everyone on our team to learn and grow professionally. As part of our Career Development Framework, our colleagues can subscribe to a variety of training courses and programmes customised for their individual development needs. The framework is our commitment to the growth and development of our people and their careers within AIG, and was recently awarded third place in the category Best Career Development Programme in the 'Employer of the Year' national competition organised as part of the 'Career in Bulgaria. Why not?' initiative.

We also distinguish ourselves through our capabilities as an AIG Centre of Excellence. The CoE's perspective is focused on the AIG customer, and we are partnering with internal stakeholders to deliver the best customer experience. We focus on building technical expertise and we actively seek opportunities to enable end-to-end process standardisation and automation. Our internal Process Excellence team has been amazing, running several major process improvement projects at the regional and global levels which have delivered a significant return on investment. In reality, I would define AIG's Sofia Centre of Excellence as a regional business hub more than a BPO, as we are creating a culture of knowledge sharing, problem-solving and collaboration independent of geography.

The outsourcing industry in Bulgaria has grown substantially over the last years. Do you believe that this process will continue?

Bulgaria offers a unique set of external factors that make it particularly attractive to companies that would like to outsource their operations or transfer some of their business processes to another country – favourable legal environment and operating costs, political and economic stability, and a talent pool of well-educated, multilingual people, ready to acquire new skills and competencies. According to the latest annual industry report, by 2021 outsourcing will almost double its turnover both in value and in terms of share in the national economy. I believe that if the government, the academic institutions and the business community work together to address the growing demand for people with technical and professional skills, the positive trend will continue.

However, there is a finite labour pool in Bulgaria and we may soon reach the point at which demand exceeds supply. As industry executives, we need to decide how outsourcing can better serve the Bulgarian economy and society by continuing to create jobs at sustainable rates.

What can companies do to attract and retain talent in this competitive labour market?

Companies should evaluate their employee base to better understand their needs and expectations. In Sofia, we have about 500 employees with an average age of 32. This age group is motivated and innovative in their thinking, and want to be empowered to make a difference in not just the work they do, but in the community around them. At the AIG Centre of Excellence, we always encourage our employees to dedicate time to Six Sigma improvement projects or sign up for volunteer activities to promote internal engagement, and we organise our operations in the best way to make that time available for them.

The millennials also want to see a clear capabilities-driven career path on how they can ascend within the company, in contrast to the more tenure and experiential-based promotions of the past, which is why we created the Career Development Framework that I mentioned earlier. And finally, leading a multi-generational organisation requires a broader set of management skills to develop the best out of each demographic, which we are investing in through enlisting an external executive coach for our senior leaders and developing several layers of management training academies to give our people the skills for 360-degree leadership.

Tell us something about yourself? What motivated you to come to Bulgaria?

I used to work in consulting, and what I enjoyed most about it was the different types of business challenges that I encountered. It's been even more so at AIG. The challenge of stabilising a new and growing services operation in Sofia during times of organisational and socio-political changes, and taking it to the next level through a period of transformation, appealed to me.

How will the insurance market and services change with the advance of artificial intelligence (AI) and other high technologies?

The widespread use of digital devices and internet is putting enormous pressure on industries for digital transformation, and the insurance industry is not an exception. From the new cyber risks which require innovative risk protection, to customers' expectations for a new digital experience during the process of buying insurance or settling a claim, to the growing need to quickly capture and analyse relevant data, the insurance business is facing major challenges and opportunities. The market is already changing and the customer will be the big winner.

Customers will benefit from lower insurance premiums, reduced time to receive their policy documents or settle their insurance claims, and an improved overall customer experience. For example, telematics solutions in auto insurance are already being used to make more accurate risk assessments based on recorded information about one's driving habits like speed and braking, allowing insurers to financially reward safer driving behaviour. Video footage from dashboard cameras, which are widely used to record traffic incidents, can be used as evidence in motor claims and easily shared via cloud technology to speed up claims resolution. In property insurance drones can conduct pre-insurance and post-event inspections and surveys, especially in dangerous or hard-to-reach sites or areas, again reducing the cost and handling time of policy issuance and claim processing. But the real added value to insurance clients will come from insurers applying machine learning and artificial intelligence not only to improve internal processes, but also to provide their clients with real-world data and analytics reports to guide them to the right insurance products or help them reduce their risk and prevent incidents.

What other challenges do insurance companies face today?

The insurance business needs to be more agile to offer flexible insurance products to meet our customers' changing needs, but the insurance customers themselves like consistency in the sense that they do not frequently shop for new risk carriers. As such, internal business growth is a challenge, and requires a significant investment to gain market share. In order to make significant growth, to move the needle, acquisitions will be key. You can see it in the market now with the recent mergers of ACE and Chubb, and AXA and XL Group. Under the previous AIG CEO, the focus was on divestitures to reduce costs and exposures, including our Eastern Europe insurance portfolio. Our new CEO, Brian Duperreault, has balanced a continued review of expenses with acquisitions of strategic partners, such as Validus and Glatfelter.

However, the challenge with acquisitions (and AIG is reaching its 100-year anniversary of growth, which was mostly through acquisitions across the globe) is that you also acquire a book of business that is on numerous unique IT platforms. The standalone systems give us a segregated view of a customer's history of coverages and claims, making it difficult for us to aggregate that information into customer analytics. The drivers for proactive risk management, better pricing, and lower operating costs comes when we are able to consolidate customer insights into a global view to make business decisions. And this again highlights the need for bold action for digital transformation in the insurance sector.

Is AIG prepared to overcome these challenges?

AIG is a company that has a long history and traditions and in 2019 we are celebrating our centennial. The year 2019 represents a rare milestone to recognise and appreciate everything we've achieved since 1919 because of the hundreds of thousands of talented and dedicated individuals who have worked for AIG over the years. And yes, this also means we have the experience, courage and dedication that will take us into the next 100 years and beyond!

An Italian writer, Roberto Saviano, who has lived for years under police protection because he was "sentenced" to death by the Neapolitan Mafia, has put it plainly: "In Italy, democracy has a mafia inside. In Bulgaria, the Mafia has democracy inside." There are of course many ways to say this, one of the most popular being the local mid-1990s adage that "every state has a mafia, in Bulgaria the mafia has a state."

No bons mots can render real life in its complexity, but every witticism has at least some truth in it. In 2018, the truth about Bulgaria has assumed monstrous, Frankenstein-like proportions.

Take the fight against corruption. In March, Desislava Ivancheva, the elected mayor of Mladost, a major Sofia borough, was dragged out of her car in broad daylight, the TV cameras rolling, and handcuffed. She was accompanied by her deputy, Bilyana Petrova. To add insult to injury, the two women were made to remain in the street, in chains, for a few hours with no access to a lawyer and with no… drinking water. Then they were put away. In several court appearances they were banned from talking to the media. Ivancheva, who is 45, resorted to some very unusual practices of making herself heard outside of the courtroom. She scribbled a statement on a piece of paper and showed it to the reporters, Vanunu-style, before being whisked away.

Her alleged crime, for which she has been held since March, was that she reportedly demanded 70,000 euros as a bribe from a developer to issue a construction permit. Her case has dragged on since then. If found guilty, she is threatened with a 30-year jail sentence and confiscation of all her assets.

The key word in the above paragraph is "dragged." In Bulgaria, under current legislation, a suspect can be held without a court trial for many months, even years. As long as it is necessary to "serve justice," or to destroy a person. All the police need to enforce a detention is a request by the prosecutors. A leftover from the times of Communism, apparently, the local, central and supreme prosecuting offices, a Bulgarian version of the US state and general attorneys, have, unlike anywhere in the West, almost unlimited and unchecked powers to order detentions and then drag their feet in piling up the evidence.

The case of Ivancheva and Petrova has assumed some very sinister proportions. In a Kafkaesque turn of events, in November, the two women, both of whom had successfully appealed their detentions, were released by a Sofia court. For a few minutes. The prosecutors were quick to appeal the appeal, and the pair were sent back to jail that very same day. Interestingly, the court imposed a further "measure" on the two women, who had been held under armed guard and appeared in court chained. They are now not allowed… to leave the country. A man, Petko Dyulgerov, who was the one to actually carry the cash that was supposed to be given to Ivancheva as a bribe, has lived in his home under house arrest.

Ivancheva was elected mayor of Mladost in 2016. She was a non-system player, an outspoken opponent of allowing the few patches of green among the Communist-era residential projects in Mladost to be built over by new, now private residential projects. Significantly, she won against a GERB candidate.

This all is being done perfectly legally, abiding to the letter of the Bulgarian law.

Several high-profile cases in the past few months have boosted the image of Bulgaria as a country where those in power can and will use all means available to settle accounts rather than attain the "spirit" of the laws.

Two families of ultra-rich entrepreneurs, the Arabadzhievs and the Banevs, were issued with arrest warrants while both were abroad. The Arabadzhievs, major players in the tourism and entertainment industry and owners of the five-star Marinella Hotel in Sofia, where many of the high-ranking guests stayed during this country's rotating presidency of the EU in the first half of 2018, were accused of money-laundering. They were in France at the time the Bulgarian authorities produced the indictment live on TV. The Arabadzhievs said they would return to Bulgaria voluntarily, and then they promptly disappeared. The Bulgarians responded by arresting their son.

The Banevs, who were also in France at the time the announcement for their indictment came, were brought back by the French police and put in jail. One of their accusations is that they had laundered "1 billion leva" (about 500 million euros). Banev responded that this was ridiculous. How can you launder 1 billion leva?, he said. You have to have made many times as much to be able to launder 1 billion.

The Arabadzhievs and the Banevs are well-respected in the circles of Bulgaria's new rich, but ordinary Bulgarians, who have to survive on a pittance and struggle to make ends meet, are resentful. Deep inside, they are suspicious of anyone who has made a lot of money too fast. They know from the years of Communism and from the 1990s that behind every great fortune there is usually a crime. Deep inside, they approve of the detentions.

Things are usually either very simple or very complicated. In Bulgaria, usually, they are very simple. So, it is not difficult to see the above three cases not as a legitimate endeavour to fight corruption but as ill-concealed attempts by those in power to simulate a fight against corruption and settle some personal accounts in the process. Worse, because they are so high-profile, they may and will be used to justify legal changes to enable even greater state powers to repress citizens of far lesser public stature: doctors, lawyers, teachers, journalists…

In this context a relatively new organisation called KPKONPI, or Commission To Fight Corruption and Seize Illegally Acquired Assets, has come to prominence. The commission was set up three years ago under Western pressure. It was modelled on similar agencies in the West that have the powers to seize, without a court order, assets they deem illegal. The commission has already been used to freeze assets in several prominent cases including the properties of Ivo Prokopiev, the publisher of Capital, a newspaper often critical of the GERB establishment, and of a couple of former GERB ministers who had fallen out with Boyko Borisov.

Such changes are already being devised. While Ivancheva, Petrova and the Banevs were safely under arrest, the Bulgarian Parliament adopted some amendments to boost the powers of KPKONPI. With the new amendments, KPKONPI will be able to seize assets even if a court has decided that no crime has been committed. Legal experts were quick to slam the amendments as generating a new Frankenstein, an omnipotent agency of the state with unlimited powers and without any checks and balances over it. Significantly, it will now be able to act over the heads of the courts.

All of the above is further compounded by the idiosyncrasies of the Bulgarian way of doing things. Little pieces of paper get lost, emails do not get answered. The only system that really functions is the car park fees text messages in Sofia and the employees of the super-secret agency to spy on suspected criminals do not show up for work. The rules and regulations keep changing and there is no way to keep abreast of all of them. The prosecutors in charge of the high-profile cases are usually "sent" from other areas on interim contracts that can be revoked by their superiors at any time. Under such conditions, will they seek to serve their superiors rather than the justice system?

Corruption is not just giving cash under the table to major and minor officials to "oil the wheels" of bureaucracy. Corruption in its Bulgarian version is an intricate and impenetrable system where cash bribes are just one element. Another is political preferences. Yet another, a defining one, is the Balkan setup of interdependencies between individuals, families and business groupings that are largely motivated by personal likes and dislikes rather than cash. One wrong word here or there, one side glance or a statement to the media that someone important enough may perceive as critical – and anyone can be in a very rough ride.

Against this background the situation in Hungary and Poland seems rosy in comparison.

Still, the West, while paying attention to developments in Poland and Hungary, where populist regimes have threatened some of the tenets of modern democracy, is oddly quiet that the same kind of thing, if not worse, has been going on in Bulgaria since Boyko Borisov's GERB took the power in 2009. One explanation is that unlike Orban in Hungary and the current rulers in Poland, Boyko Borisov has prudently not defied the West, at least not in words. Yet, despite the "successes" in infrastructure projects, where the big money is, being trumpeted by the docile media, Bulgaria remains at the rock bottom of almost all possible measurable criteria for a modern democracy. The media are hamstrung, high-level corruption is rampant. Median incomes are the lowest within the EU, so is life expectancy, the quality of public services… the quality of the air in Sofia.

Lozan Panov, the head of the Supreme Court of Cassation in Sofia who is seen as perhaps the only senior magistrate to openly criticise the GERB status quo – and who has been put under increasing pressure and even harassment – has put it succinctly: "We are faced with a system… which skilfully uses the law enforcement services, the media, the economy, politics and, of course, the law administration system. Its actions are not divulged. They are kept under the carpet. Its mistakes are not voiced, but concealed. Its opponents are being persecuted mercilessly."

The situation Panov describes is not only because Bulgaria has fallen victim to its own rulers, which it keeps electing in various forms. A large part of the blame falls on the nominal "opposition," especially on those who identify themselves as being pro-democracy and pro-Western, the new anti-Communist intellectuals. Instead of putting up some credible alternative to the current rule, they focus on criticising President Rumen Radev, probably the only senior state official who dares stand up to GERB and whom they have billed a "Russian puppet." Many of them have in fact sided with GERB, deliberately or not, either by accepting comfortable appointments or in some other way assisting Borisov in establishing his almost total control over society. They will probably be the first ones to leave the GERB boat when it starts sinking. For the time being, however, there is still a long way to go, and it is unclear whether any fresh elections, which seem entirely possible especially if the weather in the coming winter gets too cold, will solve any issues.

Bulgaria has been "captured." It is in a state of suspended animation. There is democracy in the sense that elections are being held from time to time, foreign observers are allowed to keep an eye and so on. But in the "captured" state all of those are being used to further private or corporate interests by manipulating the state policies, the judiciary and the economy, rather than to serve the public good. In this sense democracy has caved in, possibly beyond repair.

The villages in Bulgaria that are abuzz with life are generally located around cities in the plains, like those surrounding Plovdiv. Their houses were mostly built after the 1960s, so more often than not they do not offer much for the curious visitor to see, besides the ubiquitous memorial to some local Communist and a few stalls with fresh homegrown produce.

The villages that charm with their traditional architecture and atmosphere are the complete opposite: they are located in the mountains and are now depopulated. Their houses are crumbling, their gardens full of weeds, their churches locked, their cemeteries abandoned. The extent of these villages and the presence of large communal buildings, such as churches and community centres, suggest that once they teemed with life. That came to an end with the emigration to larger cities that followed the forced industrialisation under Communism, and the continued emigration to larger cities and abroad, fuelled the hardships that followed the transition to democracy.

Dlagnya is a village that defies the general rule.

It has fewer than 30 permanent residents and is located on the northern slopes of the Stara Planina, near Dryanovo. The area is liberally scattered with small villages and hamlets that once were home to thousands of people but are now mostly empty.

St Dimitar is an example for a village church that does not open for funerals only

Dlagnya, however, looks in good shape. The houses in the centre are well maintained and the main place of interest, the 1842 St Dimitar Church, has been sensitively restored and is now open for the major Orthodox holidays. When this happens, the visitors in and around the church by far outnumber those who live in Dlagnya.

Until 2002, Dlagnya was the same as the other villages around: quiet, with a locked church. Then, however, the locals organised themselves, and gathered enough money to restore St Dimitar. A young and active priest from Veliko Tarnovo started visiting. Believers and curious locals from the region began to gather, attracted by the tranquility of the place, the genuine feel of community, and the beautiful natural surroundings.

At important Christian feasts now dozens of Bulgarians and expats living in the region attend mass at St Dimitar, listen to classical concerts performed in the church, and share meals at the restored 1867 village school in the churchyard.

Outside these events, however, Dlagnya returns to the quietness of a mountain village abandoned by most of its former inhabitants.

The classical concert at the Dlagnya church after Christmas mass has become a local tradition

High Beam is a series of articles, initiated by Vagabond Magazine, with the generous support of the America for Bulgaria Foundation, that aims to provide details and background of places, cultural entities, events, personalities and facts of life that are sometimes difficult to understand for the outsider in the Balkans. The ultimate aim is the preservation of Bulgaria's cultural heritage – including but not limited to archaeological, cultural and ethnic diversity. The statements and opinionsexpressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the America for Bulgaria Foundation and its partners.

In previous times, when information signs of who had built what were yet to appear on buildings of interest, people liberally filled the gaps with their imagination. When they could not explain the origins of a majestic church, a massive earth bank or even a whole city in ruins, they invented legends about supernatural creatures whom they held responsible. For some reason, predominantly Christian Europe often saw the Devil as the most probable builder of certain churches, and particularly of bridges. There is the Devil's Footstep in Frauenkirche in Munich. There is Silbury Hill near Avebury. And about a dozen Devil's Bridges exist in Germany, Wales, England, Austria, Switzerland and France.

Bulgaria, too, has its Devil's Bridge. Curiously, it is located in an area with a predominantly Muslim population.

Bulgaria's Devil's Bridge spans the upper Arda River near the small town of Ardino in the Rhodope Mountains. It is 56m long and 11.5m high at its middle arch, and is located in a landscape that compliments its beauty. This stretch of the Arda flows through an isolated area that combines sublime peaks, bucolic forests and the subtle feeling that something invisible is always on the watch.

Standing before the bridge, marvelling at the reflection of its elegant arches in the water, it is easy to believe that this feat of engineering was only made possible with supernatural help.

Above and next photo: Different people see different devils in different parts of the bridge

Conveniently, there is a plethora of legends to explain how the bridge and the Devil are linked.

One tells that only the Devil could build such a bridge – and he did so, as daring proof of his power, leaving the imprint of his foot in the rocks around. Another tells of a Bulgarian girl running to escape a band of Ottomans and who, exhausted, decided to end it all by jumping from the bridge. When her pursuers looked down to see where she had fallen, they saw the Devil himself in the water. Terrified, they fled, and the girl emerged from the river unscathed.

Challenging to the imagination, one story tells of a young builder who made a deal with the Devil. In exchange for supernatural help, the builder would put the Devil's image into the bridge in such a way that it would be simultaneously visible and hidden. It sounded impossible and the Devil was already rubbing his hands in anticipation of the man's soul, when he realised that the builder had cleverly succeeded in the task. The face of the Devil was there. You only need to crane your neck, or rotate a photo of the bridge vertically, and you are staring into the face reflected in the water.

The true history of the Devil's Bridge is as intriguing as all these legends. It was built in the 16th century, at the request of Ottoman Sultan Selim I, to facilitate travel on a millennia-old route between the Thracian Plain and the Aegean. In the mid-20th century, the route and the bridge were abandoned and forgotten as Communist Bulgaria and NATO member Greece found themselves on the opposite sides of the Iron Curtain.

Over the following years the bridge narrowly avoided disappearing completely. The construction of a dam was proposed for this stretch of the Arda. The entire vicinity was to be submerged, but for some reason the dam was never built, and the bridge survived.

The Devil's Bridge is not only a dark-themed out-of-the-way experience, but also a popular fishing, bathing and picnicking spot

The Devil's Bridge emerged as a popular tourist destination in the 2000s, when rural and sustainable tourism was being developed, usually with EU funding. The increased popularity of the place means more visitors year round, some seemingly coming only to enjoy the barbecue area or the fishing spots. Recent renovations have robbed the centuries-old construction of its weathered charm.

However, if you have the luck to be there alone with the bridge, the river and the mountain, you would be forgiven if you find yourself listening carefully, waiting to hear the echo of the Devil's laughter, as one of the many legends about this place claims.

High Beam is a series of articles, initiated by Vagabond Magazine, with the generous support of the America for Bulgaria Foundation, that aims to provide details and background of places, cultural entities, events, personalities and facts of life that are sometimes difficult to understand for the outsider in the Balkans. The ultimate aim is the preservation of Bulgaria's cultural heritage – including but not limited to archaeological, cultural and ethnic diversity. The statements and opinionsexpressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the America for Bulgaria Foundation and its partners.

Spread on the easternmost slopes of the Rhodope, Ivaylovgrad is still largely defined by its past as a border outpost. In the Middle Ages, Bulgarians and Byzantines disputed control over the nearby Lyutitsa fortress. Under Communism, the town was deep in the border zone. Entering it without a permit was impossible, as NATO members Greece and Turkey were a stone's throw away. In the 2010s, the border here was frequently crossed by refugees.

Probably because it has been perceived as somewhat off-the-beaten-track, Ivaylovgrad remains largely unknown to outsiders. There is a one site, however, that does attract visitors: the remains of an ancient Roman villa. Spacious and richly decorated with mosaics and sculptures, it is one of the best examples of a well preserved and exhibited archaeological site in Bulgaria.

The villa was built sometime after 44-46 AD, when the Romans conquered the Thracians.

At that time, the so-called Villa rustica, or country residences, were not like the holiday homes of today. They were huge estates involved in farming or industries such as brick and pottery production.

A portrait of one of the villa's owners. Historians still disagree the children's body dysmorphia

The inhabitants of these villas were counted in the dozens. Most of them were slaves and workers who lived in the working parts of the estate. The owners had their own quarters, where they enjoyed the pleasures of civilised life thanks to a small armies of servants.

The location where Villa Armira was built, on the Armira River, a tributary of the Arda, was ideal for such a venture. The Thracian sun and the waters of the Arda and its tributaries provided favourable conditions for growing grain, vines, vegetables and fruit. Timber was abundant, and nearby quarries produced top-quality stone and marble. These were sold in the nearby city of Uskudama (later Hadrianopolis, today Edirne, in Turkey) and were shipped farther away on the then navigable Maritsa River.

Villa Armira spread over 3,600sq.m. It had two stories, 22 mosaic-decorated rooms for the owners and their guests, and a bathhouse. In the middle of the open courtyard there was a pool with marble reliefs, pillars and sculptures.

Generations of the same family inhabited the Villa Armira over the centuries, but most of them remain anonymous to us. One of the villa's owners, however, has left a valuable trace of his existence: he commissioned a mosaic portrait of himself on the floor of one of the rooms. Some archaeologists believe that the features of this thoughtful, bearded man betray a Middle Eastern ancestry. Intriguingly, most of the finest artworks in the villa were made in Aphrodisias, a city in Asia Minor, now Turkey, known for its school of architectural decoration.

But that mosaic has more curious details, as next to the owner a boy and a girl are depicted, both naked and both with legs showing clear signs of dysmorphia. Some researchers explain the bowed legs as a sign of rickets. Others suggest a simpler explanation; that the artist lacked the skill needed to depict human bodies authentically. The portrait mosaics, which were made at a later date, are not as technically perfect as the geometrical and floral ones which adorn other parts of the villa.

The villa and its inhabitants fared well until the estate was destroyed and abandoned during the Goth war of 378. The decisive battle of the conflict took place in nearby Hadrianopolis, and cost the life of Emperor Valens, the first Roman emperor to be killed by the Barbarians.

The remains of Villa Armira lay forgotten for centuries, occasionally disturbed by treasure hunters. This continued until 1964, when the construction of a reservoir on the upper course of the Armira River led to its rediscovery.

It was an amazing find, as the villa is one of the earliest and largest buildings of its kind in the Balkans. It sheds light on the region's economic history, and the remains of its mosaics and marble decoration are considered among the finest in Bulgaria.

The inhabitants of Villa Armira enjoyed luxury living

These were nearly lost in 1991, as the tumultuous beginning of the transition to democracy and soaring unemployment forced many Bulgarians to turn to treasure hunting. An underground network for smuggling was born. The state was helpless. In these times of governmental incapacity, museums were robbed, tombs were scavenged, ancient sites were bulldozed. Finds were sold to rich collectors in Bulgaria and abroad.

Villa Armira was a victim, too. Over the span of several months in 1991, most of its marble decorations and some of its mosaics were stolen. Some of them appeared years later at auctions in the West.

What remained of the villa was left to decay until the 2000s, when the site was renovated and conserved, and many of the stolen pieces of decoration were returned.

Discoveries continued, too.

In 2001, treasure hunters targeted a nearby burial mound by Svirachi village, but archaeologists intervened in time, and then began excavations. This was how they discovered a mound spanning 60 metres. It was encircled by a wall of stone and topped with a monument. Several people were buried in it, along with chariots and golden wreaths.

The mound most probably belonged to the owners of Villa Armira.

Soon afterwards a similar mound (with no wall) was excavated near Zoni, a Greek village some 20 km east of Villa Armira. There were five graves in it and five well-preserved chariots. Did this mound belong, too, to the inhabitants of Villa Armira? It appears likely.

High Beam is a series of articles, initiated by Vagabond Magazine, with the generous support of the America for Bulgaria Foundation, that aims to provide details and background of places, cultural entities, events, personalities and facts of life that are sometimes difficult to understand for the outsider in the Balkans. The ultimate aim is the preservation of Bulgaria's cultural heritage – including but not limited to archaeological, cultural and ethnic diversity. The statements and opinionsexpressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the America for Bulgaria Foundation and its partners.

Ruins of Bulgaria's recent past are around every corner, inviting exploration. Contunues from issue 146

If anything defines the modern Bulgarian landscape, it is the abundance of recent ruins left from the time when Communism collapsed and the free market filled the void left by planned economy. Dozens of factories, cooperative farms, mines, monuments and infrastructure projects have now become a treasure trove for the urban explorer.

But while urbex, or urban exploration, generally conjures up visions of rundown sites far from civilisation, in poor corners of the country or dodgy neighbourhoods, in Bulgaria this is not always the case. Some of this country's modern ruins are now in expensive neighbourhoods and city centres. Others are at the centre of public attention with controversial projects for an expensive restoration, effectively becoming the material equivalent of the mythical undead: unable to return to life, but stubbornly refusing to go.

Kremikovtsi Metallurgy Plant

Built in the environs of Sofia in the 1960s, the Kremikovtsi Metallurgy Plant was Bulgaria's largest heavy industry installation. It employed thousands of workers and was seen as one of the most illustrious examples of the rapid development of Bulgaria as a Communist economy.

After 1989, however, it soon transpired that the metallurgy plant was a giant on legs of clay (pun not intended). If it hadn't been for the Communist planned economy, it should not have been built in the first place. In fact, the Kremikovtsi plant was located on a mediocre ore deposit. Lack of local raw material forced the authorities to process ore imported from the Soviet Union. The operation was so economically unsustainable that in practice the state subsidised it throughout its life.

In the 1990s, Bulgaria's shaky economy could no longer fund Kremikovtsi. The complex was privatised. A series of new owners, however, were unable or unwilling to modernise it. In 2010, Kremikovtsi was declared insolvent. It is still there, a ghoulish industrial site on the outskirts of the capital.

Access difficulty: High. Private property with armed guards.

Belene Nuclear Power Plant

The most expensive urbex site in Bulgaria is the child of the Communist planned economy and the chaos of the transition to democracy.

Communist Bulgaria decided to build a nuclear power plant near Belene in 1981. The project started in 1987. In 1990 it was put on hold. The information blackout that the Communist government imposed in the wake of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster had made Bulgarians suspicious of nuclear power plants.

However, towards the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, a skilful propaganda campaign swayed the general public attitude in the other direction. Nuclear power plants became a symbol of economic independence and prosperity, a matter of national pride. In 2002, the government decided to relaunch the Belene project.

Belene Nuclear Power Plant is strictly off limits

Officially, the new construction effort kicked off in 2008. Importantly, the issues of funding, the overall cost, the contractors and the economic viability of the project were not clearly defined. Some of the investors withdrew amid scandals and allegations of corruption. In 2012, the works were terminated citing lack of funding.

In 2016, Bulgaria was ordered to indemnify the Russian contractor for equipment already ordered and manufactured. In 2017, the government said it would look for a strategic investor to sell the site to, but in 2018 it was announced that the project did not meet the EU's stricter regulations imposed after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. If work on Belene starts anew, a completely new project will have to be designed.

You know where to find it: Belene Town Council has already put the nonexistent power plant on its list of local sites of interest. The prison is in the same direction

The Belene Nuclear Power Plant continues to polarise society. Supporters of the project say it is an investment that will turn Bulgaria into a power engineering leader. Opponents counter that at a time of investment in renewable energy Belene would never be cost effective and would make Bulgaria dependent on Russia. There was even a referendum on the issue, in 2013. While the majority who voted said that they wanted to see a second nuclear power plant constructed, the turnout was too low to make the decision binding.

Meanwhile, the construction site is deteriorating into a very expensive frog-infested pond.

Ironically, the planned second nuclear power plant at Belene is in the immediate vicinity of the notorious Communist-era labour camp for political prisoners.

Access difficulty: Impossible to visit. Armed guards.

Zvezdets Abandoned Military Base

Under Communism, a young Bulgarian man's worst fear was that during his military service he would be sent to the so-called Triangle of Death. Formed by the military bases at Elhovo, Grudovo (today Sredets) and Zvezdets, in Bulgaria's southeast, the triangle was to be the first line of resistance to what was seen as an imminent and inevitable attack from NATO member Turkey. Everyone serving there was trained to believe that they had to withstand the invasion for as long as possible and then die heroically, buying time for the Soviet Army to arrive from Odessa.

Classical example for Communist visual propaganda

Of the three bases of the Triangle of Death, Zvezdets was closest to the border with Turkey. Located deep in the Strandzha, in the eponymous village, it was discontinued in the 1990s during the reform of the Bulgarian military. Like most other abandoned military bases, it was left at the mercy of the elements.

The Zvezdets military base is a ghostly ruin with its empty living quarters, faded patriotic slogans and murals, and dried up water fountains. The base was operational for some time after 1989, and by the pole, on which the national flag used to fly, the coat of arms of Communist Bulgaria is still visible. Today, Gypsies squat in the abandoned apartment blocks intended for the officers.

Access difficulty: Easy. Theoretically, there is a guard somewhere but you will spend more time looking for him than just going in.

Soldiers barracks from the abandoned military base

Abandoned motopiste, Sofia

Modern Sofianites consider Motopista a prestigious neighbourhood. However, the flashy façades of the new luxury apartment blocks look down on the overgrown remains of the eponymous motorcycle track.

Sofianites began flocking to this place, then on the outskirts of the city, in the early 20th century, to watch motorbike races. This activity went on well into Communism, when a stand was built, but when the growing city began invading the motopiste environs, the facility lost its allure and began to deteriorate.

Today locals use the overgrown remains of the motopiste track as a substitute for the public green areas that their overdeveloped neighbourhood needs so badly: they jog and walk their dogs and kids. Sometimes young drivers can be seen practicing manoeuvres.

The stand itself is falling to pieces.

Access difficulty: Easy.

Kosharitsa Tunnel

Ever since Bulgaria was founded in 681, the Stara Planina mountain range was a natural fortification that protected the nation from attacks from the south. In the 20th century, however, the range became more of an obstruction to transport than a strategic advantage. In the 21st century, Bulgarians continue to dream of the time when a tunnel will pass under the Stara Planina.

Few people are aware, however, that in the 1950s Communist Bulgaria invested heavily to overcome the Stara Planina obstacle. It wasn't about facilitating civil communications, though. It was about facilitating military traffic.

Back then, NATO-member Turkey was seen as Warsaw Pact Bulgaria's enemy number one. In the event of an attack from the southeast, the military doctrine went, the Soviet Army would immediately come to the rescue. The Stara Planina mountains, however, would slow it down. Thus Bulgaria started building a railway which would roughly follow the Black Sea coast all the way to the Turkish border. A 50-kilometre tunnel under the eastern reaches of the Stara Planina was part of the project.

Construction started in earnest, and a 2-kilometre-long stretch of the tunnel was drilled near the village of Kosharitsa, not far from Sunny Beach. The project was shelved, for some reason, at the end of the 1950s. The remains, however, still exist.

Access difficulty: Moderate. No signage, few passers-by will know what you are looking for. Park and walk for up to a mile.

Sugar Factory, Sofia

Slivnitsa Boulevard is one of the routes you take to reach the road to Serbia and, ultimately, Central Europe. Beside this busy boulevard, however, crumble the remains of an earlier Bulgarian effort to get closer to European culture and industry.

Zaharna Fabrika, or Sugar Factory, was built in 1898 by Belgians: a pioneering enterprise as previously the country had imported all of its sugar. Within a few years the sugar factory became a major employer and many workers were even given corporate housing near it. In 1914, however, the sugar business went sour. The First World War broke out and four new sugar factories opened in Bulgaria. The factory closed down in 1925.

The factory might be no more, but it had already given birth to a new, vibrant neighbourhood. In 1941 the government began the construction of 350 flats for workers. The trend continued under Communism, and the former sugar factory was turned into a granary.

In 1998 the main production hall, with its elegant red-brick neo-Gothic architecture, was listed as a culture monument of national significance. Due to lack of maintenance, however, it began to crumble. Unemployed locals began demolishing whole walls in search of scrap iron.

Since the 1990s, ideas for turning Zaharna Fabrika into a modern museum, art space, or lofts have come and gone, with no results at all. The property remains neglected and with each passing day, new bits of it disappear forever. The time will come, and soon, when the only reminder of the factory's very existence will be the name of the neighbourhood, Zaharna Fabrika.

Access difficulty: Easy to moderate. You can't enter because there is a guard. Best views are from the nearby flyover.

High Beam is a series of articles, initiated by Vagabond Magazine, with the generous support of the America for Bulgaria Foundation, that aims to provide details and background of places, cultural entities, events, personalities and facts of life that are sometimes difficult to understand for the outsider in the Balkans. The ultimate aim is the preservation of Bulgaria's cultural heritage – including but not limited to archaeological, cultural and ethnic diversity. The statements and opinionsexpressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the America for Bulgaria Foundation and its partners.

Situated on the northern slopes of the Stara Planina, or Balkan Mountains, this small town was a major Revival period centre where the arts and crafts flourished. A number of important Bulgarian poets, revolutionaries and entrepreneurs were born there, and now Bulgarian children are regularly taken to see it in…

It has retained plenty of its quaint charm, but at the same time is one of the few Bulgarian small cities that has eschewed the pitfalls of post-Communism. In fact, its economy after 1989 has done remarkably well. It crowns our selection of Bulgaria's Top 10 small cities that we'll bring you in the first issue of Vagabond in 2019. Where in Bulgaria are you?

]]>Where in Bulgaria are you?Sun, 23 Dec 2018 11:25:03 +0000QUOTE-UNQUOTEhttps://www.vagabond.bg/fun/quote-unquote/item/4392-quote-unquote.html
https://www.vagabond.bg/fun/quote-unquote/item/4392-quote-unquote.html"Give me the Interior Ministry for 24 hours and then there will be no street protests at all." Valeri Simeonov, leader of the National Front for Salvation for Bulgaria

"In Bulgaria not only the working and the protesting people are poor. Capitalists are poor, too."

Radosvet Radev, Chairman of the Bulgarian Industrial Association

"I am not Boyko Borisov's personal attorney."

Chief Prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov

"Let's wait for the end of the construction works, then everyone will see with their own eyes. Many of the photos are manipulated."

Winter with its cold, ice and smog can be overwhelming in Bulgaria. Thankfully, there is a quick solution: Thessaloniki.

The second largest city in Greece is a five-hour drive from Sofia, and has everything you might crave in the harsh Balkan winter. The weather is balmier. There is no ice. The sea breeze wafts in fresh air and the ideal conditions to relax, unbutton your coat and breathe freely.

Thessaloniki is more relaxed, even more anarchic, than Athens. In its centre, inexpensive shops rub shoulders with luxury boutiques and busy cafés. Street vendors sell lottery tickets and Greek pretzels. Young people on scooters manoeuvre between the tightly parked cars and sometimes between the pedestrians on the pavements. Well dressed women walk slowly, immersed in deep conversation with their friends, on their way to the Modiano covered market. Joggers run along the promenade without giving a second glance to Thessaloniki's emblematic White Tower.

Thessaloniki may be relaxed, but it is far from provincial. Its events calendar is packed with concerts by performers who rarely appear in Sofia. The night life oscillates between the centre and the former industrial zone west of the harbour that is now a collection of clubs, hotels, a museum (to waterworks!) and abandoned factories, storehouses, railway lines and rusting carriages.

The city has been like this for most of its long history. Since its establishment in Antiquity, Thessaloniki has always teemed with life, trade and commerce. The remains of its rich past are still visible all around. The weathered reliefs on the 4th century Arch of Galerius recall the Roman emperor's victory over the Persians, while the nearby Rotunda, also built by Galerius, is covered with outstanding ancient mosaics. The minaret from the days when it was a mosque still stands in the garden.

The Arch of Galerius is one of the most remarkable sites in Thessaloniki

Byzantine churches, a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site, can be seen amid the drab 1960s and 1970s apartment projects. St Demetrius is the most popular but St Sophia and Panagia Chalkeon also deserve a visit. The excellent Byzantine Museum provides valuable background on the city's mediaeval life.

The red-brick remains from the Ottoman times – a former mosque here, an old hammam there – add a welcome splash of colour to Thessaloniki's prevailing grey. The city fortress, which was used and reused by a succession of rulers, looms over the labyrinth of 19th century houses in the Ano Poli, or Upper City, quarter. The best views of Thessaloniki and the sea are from here. When the air is clean, Mount Olympus can be seen on the horizon.

Thessaloniki's joys of life are as diverse as is its cityscape. You can scout for antiques in the flea market a street away from the remains of the ancient forum. You can stroll along the promenade or spend hours the Greek way, chatting with friends in a waterfront café. You can stock up on artisan olive oil, excellent olives or spices from the Modiano market, or you can lose yourself in the winding streets around, until you find yourself in front of the dusty façade of the City Halls. These no longer sell food, but some of the empty spaces are now restaurants.

Restaurants! The food that Thessaloniki offers year round is one of the main reasons to take that five-hour drive from Sofia. The local taverns provide variety and quality at more affordable prices than those in Athens: tender fresh fish and grilled octopus covered in olive oil and oregano, delicate mussels with rice, juicy meatballs, tender lamb chops, fried potatoes crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, melted cheese in an earthenware pot, bread that is to die for. Free desserts. The list goes on for pages.

With a full stomach and a slightly fuzzy head from the ouzo and the local wines, you can only wonder: why not move to Thessaloniki permanently, or at least for the winter?

Bulgarian seaside towns look towards the mainland but Thessaloniki is open out to sea

A scandal in GERB's Bulgaria usually lasts for a couple of days as it is superseded by the next scandal to keep the public busy and thinking about things other than the politics and the problems of the day. One scandal in November, however, lasted well over a week. Interestingly,…

Or, rather, the cocktail party that followed a modern art exhibition.

The generator of this was Oda Jaune, whose real name is Mihaela Danovska, a Bulgarian artist born in 1979. In 1998-2003 she studied in Dusseldorf under Jorg Immendorff, the German painter, sculptor, educator and member of the art movement Neue Wilde. Danovska married Immendorff and went on to a brilliant art career. She won the Pierre Cardin Best Painter Prize in 2012 and has had numerous exhibitions in Germany, Italy, France and elsewhere.

Following her exhibition at the National Gallery in Sofia, the organisers set up a cocktail party where the food, mainly salami and cheese, was arranged as a… reclining mermaid. The local art crowd was in attendance, but no press was invited. Snapshots of the "salami mermaid" leaked out, and all hell broke loose.

Known and unknown hacks put pen to paper to produce hundreds of vitriolic commentaries on how could those privileged enough to be invited to a party like that eat and drink while mothers of disabled children protested outside for better conditions. How could the National Art Gallery provide its rooms to a debauchery? Was this not a major provocation against Bulgaria's national decorum and even security? How, why, who paid for it, who was responsible, who is to be crucified etc etc – enhanced by the social media networks, the newspaper commentaries snowballed and threatened to become a full-scale street protest, probably the first one in Bulgaria on an arts issue.

Still, this was not the first time when food created a scandal in latterday Bulgaria. In the late 2000s then President Georgi Parvanov, who is not a modern artist, treated his guests on 3 March, Bulgaria's National Day, to a cake decorated with sugarcoated figurines of… Bulgarian resistance soldiers fighting the Ottomans, in 1877-1878. There was some limited criticism at the time, but nothing compared to Oda Jaune.

]]>Joke of the monthSun, 23 Dec 2018 11:24:35 +0000BULGARIA UNDER COMMUNISM: NEW BOOK IN ENGLISH EXPLORES RECENT PASThttps://www.vagabond.bg/fun/reviews/item/4393-bulgaria-under-communism-new-book-in-english-explores-recent-past.html
https://www.vagabond.bg/fun/reviews/item/4393-bulgaria-under-communism-new-book-in-english-explores-recent-past.html

Books about Bulgarian history in foreign languages are few and far between. This is particularly true for this nation's recent past as a Communist country. While some international researchers with an interest in 20th century history are aware that Bulgaria was a loyal Soviet ally between 1944 and 1989, just…

A new book, Bulgaria Under Communism, published by Routledge in 2018, fills the gaps for English speakers. Written by Professor Ivaylo Znepolski and historians from the Bulgarian Institute for Research of the Recent Past, the volume covers the most important aspects of Bulgaria as a Communist country. It provides all the background needed for a person unfamiliar with Bulgarian history to understand how and why Communism took over, in 1944. It also explores the profound transformation of Bulgarian politics, society, economy and culture in the 45 years that followed.

Communism in Bulgaria is often perceived as a monolithic period, but this is not so. Communist Bulgaria of the 1950s was different from Communist Bulgaria of the 1980s. Communist policies fluctuated between internationalism and nationalism, the economy balanced between large-scale spending and bankruptcy, Bulgaria's minorities, intelligentsia and religious institutions were showered with privileges or were brutally suppressed. The authors of Bulgaria Under Communism thoroughly explain these transformations. The narrative is divided into three chronological parts: establishment of Communism and Stalinism; destalinisation and consolidation of Todor Zhivkov's regime; and the collapse of Communism in Bulgaria. The role of the regime's defining figures, dictators Georgi Dimitrov and Todor Zhivkov, is clearly explained.

The result is a rich and fascinating picture of one of Europe's least known former Communist countries.

Bulgaria Under Communism is a part of the Routledge Histories of Central and Eastern Europe, ISBN: 9780815372790

Of course, with Andrej there was no question of it being anything more serious than sex. We weren't even girlfriend and boyfriend. He never once introduced me as his girlfriend. I was a girl. Not his girl. When we would go out with other people, they were usually foreigners, current or potential clients, very rarely his friends. I would sit by some guest, explaining what was in a shopska salad, saying "cheers," letting them light my cigarettes if they were men, or lighting their cigarettes if they were women, and when Andrej's stories or the other people's interest began to dry up, or dessert was taking a long time, with his subtle, smiling diplomacy he would turn the conversation around something at the table and casually say, "And this is how we were influenced heavily by the Soviets. Oh, by the way, did you know, Danny was born in the Soviet Union. Right, Danny?," after which the conversation would start back again, fueled by questions that would immediately be forgotten and answers that didn't interest anyone.

What could I tell people about this Soviet Union where I had been born? From the town where I was born I remembered the blue letters on the bus station, lit up against the winter night – I was a year and a half old, and my mother insisted that there was no way I could remember this, that someone must have told me; I remembered my grandfather's Zaporozhets, where we would drive with two more people than were allowed, and so the children were seated down in the floor wells; I remembered my grandmother's kitchen and her yard, where my brother and I would examine the lines of red firebugs. These tiny pieces were important only to me, so for the foreign guests I would borrow others from my mother's stories – southern summers, veiled women, high peaks over unscalable walls, stormy seas, the gardens that my grandfather planted.

Because of the nature of his work, Andrej was surrounded by all manner of people who, for their part, were able to get various things done. Some connections were managed carefully, while others were exploited once and then dropped. The same went for the women, who placed more value on breaking into careers as models, make-up artists, or business women than on their reputations. Andrej's contacts were spread out not only in the publishing and advertising industries, but also among film producers, studios, and modeling agencies, as well as in big international business. He claimed that this was the most important key for the women's favorable disposition towards him. One night in intimate company he had had a little too much to drink and excitedly explained the price list of the news anchors on national television: for dinner with A. – one three-figure sum, to spend the night with I. – a certain four-figure sum, for which she might condescend to a second evening.

Yes, the '90s had just dropped off the calendar, but they were still hanging around. The mafia were successful. Politicians were successful. Someone who didn't know these times might have a hard time drawing a boundary between these two professions. Mushrooming and flourishing alongside them were their lawyers, doctors, bodyguards, and errand boys – bunches of people who rendered expert services, and their attendants and their children.

The women who were successful were the wives, or more often the lovers, of many of these successful men. The sins and sorrows that befell us in later years were born and built up their muscles precisely then – just like we did ourselves. But whereas we were struggling to survive and to grow up, to maintain our families and a little sanity, to overcome this crisis, too, to help this friend, to send off the latest one who couldn't endure it anymore, to stave off the latest outrage, they were accumulating resources that subsequently allowed them to divide and control us unimpeded.

To leave for abroad – where, in our imaginations, better opportunities awaited us at the airport with a bag of good luck – was a universal practice. At the end of the '90s the Bulgarian family was a scattered jigsaw puzzle – some of the pieces stayed home, others worked abroad. Our mothers, sisters, and husbands built hotels in Spain, cared for Greek pensioners, washed cars in Germany, flipped burgers in the States, and the children who had the opportunity studied at universities. Most of them would send money home. So we also traveled – going there with sacks of rattling jars, and coming back with bags full of electronics and appliances.

The route out often led first from a small town to Sofia, and then from Sofia to abroad.

I couldn't see what my options were to be successful, but I wanted, really wanted, to succeed. I didn't have the money to leave as a student. That's what my mother told me – "I have no money, I have no opportunities, see if you can think up something yourself."

I didn't know how to become a politician. The mafia were men. I couldn't imagine myself marrying one of these people or sleeping with them – not just because they were lewd, greasy, bow-legged older men with horrible, Cranachian expressions, or because they were criminals, or because they were inaccessible in their heights of the nomenklatura elite. We were just from different worlds. I and the people I lived among were one Bulgaria; they were another. And even when they would shoot each other on the neighboring street, I would never have said that these people and I lived in the same world.

Andrej, for his part, was at home in every world, in the company of anyone. Even today I still have no idea why he paid attention to me, of all people.

I can see much more logic in why he was in a hurry for us to split up.

Albena Todorova is a poet with a day job. Her self-published debut poetry book stihotvoreniya (poems) won an award at the prestigious Ivan Nikolov Awards in 2014 – one of a very few self-published collections to do so. Her second poetry book, Stihotvoreniya, ot koito ti se jivee (Poems to make you want to live), was published in 2018. Albena has been working on a novel draft for the last several months. You can find her blog, written mostly in Bulgarian, at http://bembeni.com.

THE ELIZABETH KOS­TOVA FOUNDATION and VAGABOND, Bulgaria's English Monthly, cooperate in order to enrich the English language with translations of contemporary Bulgarian writers. Every year we give you the chance to read the work of a dozen young and sometimes not-so-young Bulgarian writers that the EKF considers original, refreshing and valuable. Some of them have been translated in English for the first time. The EKF has decided to make the selection of authors' work and to ensure they get first-class English translation, and we at VAGABOND are only too happy to get them published in a quality magazine. Enjoy our fiction pages.

The Managing Director of ManpowerGroup Bulgaria on the smart ways to make the best of the current labour market

Finding and keeping talents for any business is one of Bulgaria's greatest challenges. The country's official unemployment rate of 5.4% is both good and bad news. More people work and the wages in the most rapidly developing sectors have significantly increased. Shortage of skilled labour, however, can become an impediment for Bulgaria's economy.

A recent survey of ManpowerGroup Bulgaria, the local branch of the leading global workforce solutions company, has put the trend into data. In 2018, 68% of the companies in the country experience difficulties in finding proper talent compared to 42% in 2011. The largest companies face the biggest challenges – 81% of them struggle to fill their positions compared to 52% of the microbusinesses. The most sought after talents include skilled workers, IT experts, engineers, sales representatives, drivers, managers, hospitality professionals, administrators, healthcare personnel, finance and accounting specialists. The lack of people is the main reason for companies to experience difficulties in finding proper talents.

ManpowerGroup has the expertise in connecting companies that search for talents, and professionals who want to change their job. As of May 2018 ManpowerGroup Bulgaria has a new managing director, the young and energetic Aleksandar Hangimana who is now responsible for the company's operations in the Balkans.

What are the specificities of the Bulgarian labour market?

The transformation the country went through is striking – Bulgaria has become a candidate-driven market and there is a tremendous lack of job applicants in all industries, from factories to white-collar positions. There are two big factors behind this. First, the open borders. People can now travel, work and live abroad, and they prefer to do so in the Western countries where the salaries are significantly higher. Second, Bulgaria has become an attractive market for investors. They have been present for years here and they continue to arrive. This has had a number of positive effects such as decrease of the unemployment rate. As a result, however, there is now a shortage of people in all industry sectors.

Is Bulgarian work culture different in any respect than the rest of Europe?

No, it is completely the same. People here are very reliable, the quality of their work is excellent and they properly communicate what they are happy or unhappy with in their job.

How does Bulgaria compare to other countries in Eastern Europe?

All countries in the region offer good education and a labour force that is qualified, skilled and reliable. In this regard, Bulgaria is among the top emerging markets in the region. Add to these the low capital taxes and you see why when investors analyse whether to open a business in Eastern Europe, Bulgaria is always shortlisted.

The big issue is that Bulgaria and the rest of the countries in the region are not as wealthy as other European countries, so they experience a steady emigration of workforce. We also lack outside markets that could compensate for the lack of people like, for example, the Far East or North Africa are for the Western countries. This is a challenge that all countries in Eastern Europe face. To deal with it some companies from the Czech Republic and Poland have begun recruiting workers from Bulgaria offering them not only higher salaries but also the experience of living and upskilling abroad. Governments have also begun to address the problem. Romania, for example, increased the salaries in some sectors in order to prevent further emigration. I believe that Bulgaria also needs a policy of the kind in the near future in order to tackle the problem with talent shortage.

Of course, we also witness a reverse trend, that is, a significant number of Poles and Czechs who had emigrated to the UK, going back to their native countries.

How does ManpowerGroup deal with these challenges?

The current situation is not only a challenge but also an opportunity. The situation we see in Bulgaria has already happened in countries like Poland and the Czech Republic. This is a phase and Bulgaria is yet to go through it. So it has the benefit of learning from others' mistakes.

ManpowerGroup's advantage is that we connect qualified candidates to the best employers on the market, and that we educate companies on how to develop and keep them.

Businesses have started to realise that they need to provide their employees with a long-term engagement in order to stay on the market. Others are yet to recognise this. A business nowadays has to be prepared and to invest in its workforce. The faster a company reacts in the current situation, the better its position will be.

It is important that all stakeholders in a company – directors, HR managers, owners, realise that the current labour market is highly competitive and there is a huge demand for talent.

Who are ManpowerGroup's corporate clients in Bulgaria?

We partner with both local and international companies from all industries. Our expertise is beneficial in two respects. Being part of a global organisation we have broad know-how, but we are also experts in local issues. In addition, we have set up designated teams of industry experts – from IT to production to retail, who provide in-depth and personalised service to each client in Bulgaria.

What are your advantages over social networks for professional connections?

ManpowerGroup can spread the right content to the right people in the right locations. This works excellently for both candidates and clients.

When a company turns to us for help, we start by providing an analysis of its competitiveness on the current labour market regarding wages, benefits, policies, retention programs and similar. Then we develop an action plan on how to find the people our client needs, including where to spread the company's employer brand message, attracting candidates, assessing and finally recruiting them.

On the other hand, when a job-seeker turns to us, we first look at his qualifications, experience and professional background. We also discuss whether he wants to find a job in the same field, to upskill or to change his current industry and position. Then our consultants assess the candidate's skills and advise whether he would need to expand certain soft or hard skills such as learning a new computer programme or a foreign language. Such details are very important, particularly when one has spent years at his previous position and as a result is not well-informed on the needs of the current labour market. In order to find their new dream job, job-seekers have to be relevant to the environment.

How ManpowerGroup measures its success?

This is a twofold process. On the one hand, it is the extent to which we identify candidates who fit clients' requirements and needs. On the other, it is the ratio of employees who stay in their new jobs.

So far, due to the specificities of the Bulgarian labour market, the bigger challenge has been to find people for the free positions. We excel in keeping employees at their new jobs because we work only with companies that have proven to be good employers. Businesses today have to understand that the salary they offer is but a part of the solution when keeping an employee is concerned. Providing additional benefits, flexibility, comfortable working environment and opportunities to develop new skills are key for having loyal and committed manpower in such a competitive market.

Freedom of speech suffered yet another serious blow in the EU's poorest member state when the Office of the Chief Prosecutor accused Elena Yoncheva, a TV journalist and now the floor spokesperson for the opposition BSP, of "money laundering." Yoncheva's alleged crime was that she received funding from the bankrupted KTB, or Corporate Merchant Bank, run by Tsvetan Vasilev. Her real crime, however, is that she has been critical – uncompromisingly critical – of Boyko Borisov, his GERB and their extreme nationalist allies.

Yoncheva, who was the partner of former Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev, a Socialist, produced a documentary film about the much-lauded fence along the Bulgarian-Turkish border. The fence, Yoncheva's film showed, was not only inefficient for its declared purpose, to prevent illegal immigration, but also substandard: a bit of rain made a section of it collapse and opened up a gap that took days if not weeks to mend.

The rulers were infuriated as the fence had been the darling of the extreme nationalist Valeri Simeonov, now former deputy prime minister. They could not do anything against Yoncheva at the time. So what they did in retaliation was… to declare the fence classified and off-limits, outlawing any filming of it. Nice and clean.

After Chief Prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov announced Yoncheva was being indicted, his spokesperson clarified: "In case there is no justified evidence of criminal activity there will be no persecution." Some commentators were prompted to question the integrity of this: Is this how Bulgarian justice works? Does the chief prosecutor first accuse, live on TV, and then seek the evidence? In a law-and-order state, should it not be the opposite?

Yoncheva immediately announced that she would renounce her parliamentary immunity and cooperate with the authorities. On the following day she produced papers that reportedly proved that the Svoge section of the Sofia-Vratsa road, recently refurbished, was declared substandard the moment it was opened. That section saw a major traffic incident in August. Twenty people died. The documents Yoncheva produced implied the construction contractor had been ordered to remake the road as soon as it had opened, but nothing happened.

Boyko Borisov's road building has been the feather in GERB's hat ever since they ascended to power, in 2009.

Harassment of this kind is nothing new in GERB's Bulgaria. Prior to the Elena Yoncheva incident, Ivo Prokopiev, the publisher of the Kapital weekly, had his possessions impounded by the Seizure of Illegal Assets Commission, a relatively new body with powers to confiscate, without a court order, properties it deems of criminal origin. That commission was set up under pressure by the West solely to combat organised crime. What the West failed to see at the time was that in the hopelessly corrupt environment of Bulgaria it could only too easily be used to settle political and personal accounts. What works in the UK and Germany does not necessarily function in Bulgaria.

There is little doubt that media freedoms have been seriously curtailed in Bulgaria.

According to the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders watchdog, which issues an annual worldwide freedom-of-speech index, Bulgaria ranks 111th. Trailing behind Macedonia and Bolivia, Bulgaria is ahead of the Central African Republic, Zambia and Congo-Brazzaville. Succinctly put, it is rock bottom in the EU.

n its 2018 monitoring report on Bulgaria the European Commission confirmed its concern about the state of the Bulgarian media. The report pointed out that free and independent media were essential for the independence of the judiciary against the background of information attacks against some judges and the ongoing difficulties in finding efficient means for legal defence. Boyko Borisov, Bulgaria's picturesque prime minister, was unhappy. "Who is banned from doing what?" he asked rhetorically, and went on: "An oligarch sets up a media to cover and defend whatever he has stolen and then, suddenly, we are not allowed to touch him, whoever he may be." "Anyone with a court case over his head can set up an Internet site within hours and then claim his freedom of speech has been violated," the prime minister said.

It is under Boyko Borisov and his GERB that media freedoms in this country have plummeted so dramatically. From the relative comfort of the 2000s, when Bulgaria still eyed NATO and EU membership, to the economic crisis of the late 2000s and early 2010s, when Borisov and his lieutenants took over, media freedoms have all but evaporated.

Significantly, against this background it has become fashionable to claim curtailed freedom of speech. Some operators gladly do it because in this way they gain the much needed publicity for themselves.

In October, Bivol, an Internet site which claims it deals in investigative journalism, was particularly outspoken following the brutal rape and murder of Viktoria Marinova, a TV journalist, in the town of Ruse. An act of political repression, it said, a political assassination of a brave woman who had broadcast an interview with a Bivol journalist before she was raped and killed, an Anna Politkovskaja. Vigils in memory of Marinova, the mother of a toddler, were held and the whole of Bulgaria was sent into a frenzied state. Bivol is an associate of Wikileaks. Reporters Without Borders, who allegedly consult Bivol about Bulgaria, demanded a full investigation to verify the rapist and murderer had acted "alone" – even when the culprit had already been arrested, made a confession and pointed out he had never heard of his victim in her capacity as a journalist.

Social media also provides plenty of opportunity to claim infringed freedom of speech. Manol Glishev, who usually introduces himself as a poet, claimed Facebook had suspended his accounts, a clear indication, in his opinion, that his ideas were uncomfortable to the rulers. Glishev rose to prominence in 2013 when he was one of the figureheads in the mass protests that brought about the downfall of the short-lived government of Plamen Oresharski. Why his FB accounts were suspended can perhaps be deduced from some of his posts in which he openly calls for violence against the current rulers whom he "hates more than even the Communists" and who, in his opinion, should be put in graves covered in "blood and sh*t".

Unfortunately, the responses to the incidents described above has not been particularly even-handed. Glishev's fans were up in arms when they read FB had kicked him out. Freedom of speech champions have flocked in defence of Prokopiev. But they have carefully abstained from putting in a word for Yoncheva, possibly because she belongs to the BSP, the heir to the Bulgarian Communist Party, and therefore is not in vogue.

Double standards are nothing new in post-Communist Bulgaria, and the current state of media freedoms is fertile ground for both futile philosophising and hypocrisy. In the meantime, the agencies of the state under GERB, which spent millions of EU cash on advertising with "friendly" media continue to make any uncomfortable journalist redundant, often under the guise of legal action.

Thankfully, journalists in Bulgaria do not get shot. They usually do not get arrested either, except in the middle of the night by some village cop who's seen something "suspicious" in a farming field. But they can easily be muzzled out of business. If they aren't, they can can capitalise on being "repressed."

Not all ruins are created equal. Regarded as pinnacles of human imagination and dexterity, ancient sites such as the Parthenon, the Great Wall and Stonehenge get scores of tourists and are a source of pride for their home countries. Abandoned modern housing projects, hospitals and factories, however, are perceived as…

Yet the sombre aura of desolation and utter despair exuded by modern ruins can be evocative. They simultaneously frighten, disgust and enchant. When walking around spaces that were abandoned mere decades before, we begin to reflect on the people – almost our contemporaries – who used to live and work there, and who then left, leaving behind a soiled rag here, a rusty bed or a desecrated image of a once powerful party leader there. Who were these people? What did they experience there? Such places remind us of the fragility of our own civilisation. Besides their philosophical side, modern ruins have an aesthetic one, too. They are often the perfect setting for a mood photo.

Urbex, or urban exploration, is the name of a current movement concerned with modern ruins, and Bulgaria is one of its star destinations. The country is a fertile ground for the exploration of 20th century ruins. Most were built under Communism: factories, farm cooperatives, mines, tunnels, party houses, monuments. At the time of their construction, they were ambitious projects that underpinned the power of the totalitarian regime and the virtues of its planned economy. After 1989, however, Communism collapsed, and so did the planned economy. Many of these once glorious projects became redundant, and were abandoned.

Part of Bulgaria's urbex heritage, however, belongs to an earlier era. These are industrial and infrastructure sites that were built on the cusp of the 20th century, and were used or repurposed during Communism. They were also abandoned after 1989, mostly because no-one had the money, the imagination or the ability to use them in any meaningful way. That is why so many old industrial sites in Bulgaria are disintegrating, instead of being redesigned as museums or expensive lofts.

Communist Party House and Memorial, Buzludzha

Bulgaria's best known urbex site is the abandoned house and monument of the Bulgarian Communist Party on Mount Buzludzha, in the Stara Planina mountains. Ironically, until the collapse of Communism, Buzludzha was a powerful symbol of the party's supposedly eternal grip over the nation.

Buzludzha's interior was accessible until recently, but is now sealed off for safety reasons

The memorial was built in 1981 to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the establishment of the Socialist movement in Bulgaria. The massive structure was visible from afar. Its circular assembly hall had a diameter of 42 metres and was 14.5 metres high. 70- мetre-tall concrete pillar rose next to it. It was decorated with 12 -мetre-tall red stars.

The monument had an interior to match, with plush furniture and expensive artwork, including propaganda mosaics by the best artists of the day.

After the collapse of Communism, in 1989, the building quickly lost its glory: there was no longer a party to claim the place as its own. As economic crisis followed economic crisis and unemployment surged, people robbed the Buzludzha monument of everything that could be sold for even a tiny profit.

Buzludzha became a ruin.

In the 2000s, photographers and adventure seekers discovered the abandoned monument. They wandered around its ruins, and spread the word via the emerging medium of the Internet.

Today, as the monument's roof is collapsing, access to the inside of the building is banned. However, photographers always find a way in. Strictly speaking, you are trespassing. If you dare do it, do bring a hard hat and a rope, and never go alone. You've been warned.

Access difficulty: High, next to impossible.

King Asen Non-Ferrous Metals Quarry

Among other things, Communism was about industrialisation. The country was combed for deposits of precious metals and other resources. The King Asen Non-Ferrous Metals Quarry, near Pazardzhik, was one of those projects. The source, however, was eventually exhausted. The pit was abandoned and rain and time turned it into a lake. Its strange blue colour is one of the reasons why locals claim that the quarry "contains the whole Periodic Table of Elements." After heavy rain, the abandoned quarry sometimes floods, polluting the River Luda Yana that provides the water supply for the neighbouring villages.

Access difficulty: Easy. Park by the road and walk.

Abandoned Navy Base, Sozopol

One of Bulgaria's most atmospheric set of ruins is located on an island.

Or, more correctly, a former island.

The islet of St Kirik is in Sozopol's main harbour and was the original site where, in the 6th century BC, the town's predecessor was founded. As time passed, people moved to the mainland. In 1924, a school to train fishermen was set up on St Kirik. Officially, it was supposed to provide a vocational education to young Bulgarians from the mainland who had settled on the Black Sea coast after the exchange of populations with Greece after the First World War. Unofficially, however, the island was a training base for navy officers. At that time, the 1919 Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine had ordered Bulgaria, a defeated country in the Great War, not to maintain any military forces. In 1927, a wharf was built, connecting the islet to the mainland.

The naval college moved to Varna in 1940. Under Communism, the building became a military base, and in 1965 was declared a monument of culture. However, it has been abandoned since the base closed in the 2000s. Ideas for turning the island and the former navy base into a tourist attraction have yet to materialise.

The tip of the island is now used by the Bulgarian Border Guard service. Consequently, the armed guard at the entry of the causeway will not let you in.

Access difficulty: High, next to impossible. You risk arrest if you try to enter.

Tyulenovo Oil Field

Oil fields? In Bulgaria? Today its sounds like a fantasy, but under Communism it looked like a possibility, at least for several years.

In 1951, oil was discovered near the small northern Black Sea coast village of Tyulenovo. Drilling started, and in 1960 a pier to load crude oil onto Soviet tankers was constructed near Shabla.

The joy was short-lived. The oil deposits turned out to be small and substandard.

The field was abandoned, but dozens of drills and tanks were left to rust along the road between Shabla and Tyulenovo. Poking up out of the overgrowth, they formed a surreal landscape. Visitors even took showers with the hot water that pumps still brought from underground.

Today most of the remains of Tyulenovo's failed oil field are no more. Most were sold for scrap to make space for the new energy fad, wind turbines. Until recently, the Shabla pier was deteriorating, too, but in 2016 it was revamped for tourism.

Access difficulty: Easy. By the road.

Varna Ship Scrap Yard

Today, when ships have to die, they are sailed to India and Bangladesh. There they are dismantled in one of these nations' infamous scrap yards. Bulgaria had its own ship scrap yard, too, near Varna. When it was in full operation, it was both frightful and astonishing, packed with the rusting remains of vessels large and small.

Now, due to EU legislation, no ship can be dismantled on EU territory. Consequently, the Varna Ship Scrap Yard has closed. The area, however, still bears traces of its past, with the remains of ships scattered here and there.

Access difficulty: Moderate. If you find the way, you can observe from the sidelines but will be unable to enter as the site is now private property.

Former Airforce Base, Ravnets

In 1953, a fleet of fighter aircraft was stationed at Ravnets airport, near Burgas. It used to serve as the defence of Bulgaria's southern maritime border with NATO-member Turkey. The airbase was closed in 2001.

A huge runway and at least a dozen hangars remain in various stages of dilapidation. Surrounding them are many modern ruins of residential buildings where the servicemen used to live. One of them went on to become Bulgaria's current president, Rumen Radev.

Access difficulty: Easy. Completely abandoned.

The 'Royal' Railway Station, Kazichene

With its dilapidated façade still bearing fading traces of former neo-Baroque charm, the Kazichene railway station is a sad sight. It is hard to imagine that the building is a monument of culture and a museum. Once, it was used exclusively by the Bulgarian royal family, who lived in the nearby Vrana residence, on the outskirts of Sofia. There was even a narrow-gauge line that connected the residence and the station.

At that time Kazichene was referred to by the public as The Royal Station. It also witnessed some important events in Bulgarian history. On 3 October 1918, the day of his abdication, King Ferdinand (1887-1918) boarded at Kazichene the train that would take him away from the country he had ruled, never to return. His grandson, the eight-year-old King Simeon II (1943-1946) did the same, on 16 September 1946, a few days after a referendum proclaimed Bulgaria a "people's republic," although he did return many years later.

Access difficulty: Easy. Lives by the road.

International Youth Centre, Primorsko

Today young Bulgarians travel freely and study abroad. Under Communism, however, their peers had really only one, limited option to meet other young foreigners: to be sent on a two-week vacation to the International Youth Centre at Primorsko, on the Black Sea. Established in 1955, the Georgi Dimitrov International Youth Centre was to foster contacts between young people in the East bloc. It did so quite successfully. Every summer for the following decades it was a place where thousands of young people enjoyed the sun, the sea, and the discos. In the 1970s and 1980s, when the complex experienced its finest years, it was frequented by "seagulls," the slang for local Bulgarian men who would spend the whole summer at the seaside in pursuit of relationships with foreign girls, of whom the Czechs, the Poles and the East Germans were the most popular.

Abandoned summer cinema, International Youth Centre, Primorsko

After 1989 the Youth Centre in Primorsko was privatised. Today some of its facilities are hotels and bungalows, but many of the former buildings are ghostly ruins. Access difficulty: Easy to moderate. If you go in summertime your main obstruction will be the brambles and the cornets that will try to eat you alive.

High Beam is a series of articles, initiated by Vagabond Magazine, with the generous support of the America for Bulgaria Foundation, that aims to provide details and background of places, cultural entities, events, personalities and facts of life that are sometimes difficult to understand for the outsider in the Balkans. The ultimate aim is the preservation of Bulgaria's cultural heritage – including but not limited to archaeological, cultural and ethnic diversity. The statements and opinionsexpressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the America for Bulgaria Foundation and its partners.

The ongoing "patriotic" craze that has gripped Bulgaria since Boyko Borisov's GERB allied itself with the extreme nationalists of the National Salvation Front, the VMRO and Ataka, all of them currently in government, sometimes assumes odd, even surreal proportions. Forget the run-of-the-mill calls for Bulgaria to expand towards three seas…

"This is Professor Dr Sashka Ganeva from Slivnitsa," the caption to the above photo reads. "She used to work for NASA. She devised new nano particles to improve early medical diagnosis. She returned to work for the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences for a 2,000 times lower salary, but no one talks about her because she is neither a playmate, nor a footballer's wide. Please share so more Bulgarians can feel proud of her." Sounds nice, eh?!

Trouble is, the woman in the picture is not Dr Sashka Ganeva. In fact, there isn't a Dr Sashka Ganeva at all. The woman in the photo is… Sasha Grey, an American adult film actress. In actual fact, Mrs Grey has been quite successful though not in the field of Dr Sashka Ganeva – she has had numerous accolades for her adult film appearances, including the 2008 Female Performer of the Year given to porn stars with the best body (pun not intended) of work.

"Dr Sashka Ganeva" is joined by a dozen other "successful Bulgarians" in the fields of technology, science, medicine and the arts who have "returned" to their homeland to work for the communal good. All of them are in fact porn stars whose claims to fame vary.

Interestingly, all of these hoax photos circulating Facebook inevitably carry the logo "Bulgaria for the Bulgarians!"

Some of the returning "Bulgarians"

Obviously, the whole "campaign" is a hoax. It was started by Iliyan Dukov in Veliko Tarnovo who used a picture of a veteran porn star, Ron "Hedgehog" Jeremy, whom he represented as a world-famous Bulgarian cardiac surgeon. Dukov said he wanted to probe people's gullibility on the Internet. His "selling point" was… patriotism.

Thousands of Bulgarians, including intelligent people with higher education and including Bulgarians who actually have made a living in the West, continue to like and share the "patriotic" posts.

The heritage of the ancient Thracians, a people that inhabited what is now Bulgaria between the 2nd millennium BC and the 7th century AD, includes lavishly decorated tombs, gold treasures, and mysterious rock shrines.

One place, however, reveals more about Thracian history than anywhere else in Bulgaria. Situated on some hills along the bends of the Teketo River, Sboryanovo Reserve offers a glimpse of a Thracian city and citadel, plus several necropoli and shrines, and reveals astonishing building skills, gold treasures and important information about the religion, economy and social life of the Thracians.

From the 1st millennium BC until late Antiquity in the 5-6th centuries AD, the region was the home of the Getae, a Thracian tribe which controlled the lands on both sides of the Danube. In the 6th century BC they were conquered by the Persians, and later fought, with varying success, with ancient Macedonia and the heirs of Alexander the Great. In the 4th-3rd centuries BC, Sboryanovo was the centre of the political power of the Getae kings.

Sveshtarska Grobnitsa, or Sveshtari Tomb, is the indisputable highlight of the reserve. Discovered in 1982, it is unique throughout the Thracian world: its burial chamber is decorated with both frescoes and sculptures. The wall painting depicts an imposing woman crowning a rider with a wreath. Ten limestone caryatids line the walls; their oddly proportioned bodies, intricately carved dresses and sturdy faces with wide-open eyes capture your attention in the claustrophobically narrow chamber. Both the Sveshtari caryatids and the tall woman in the fresco are believed to represent the all-mighty Great Goddess of the Thracians. The rider in the mural was probably a deified Thracian king, receiving his immortality from the Great Goddess. He was also supposedly buried in that very same tomb.

The vaulted ceilings of the tomb chambers are unique for Thracian architecture

Historians believe that they know who that man was. Based on circumstantial evidence, some have suggested that he was King Dromichaetes, one of the two Getae royals to gain a mention in the historical records of the time.

In 1985, UNESCO listed the Sveshtari Tomb as a World Heritage Monument. Due to preservation issues, visiting time in the tomb is strictly limited.

The burial mounds in Sboryanovo, however, hide even more. So far, more than 100 tumuli have been identified here, explaining why until recently the locals called the area Land of the Hundred Mounds. According to a theory, the positions of the tumuli were not chosen randomly, and the groups of mounds represented giant maps of some of the constellations in the sky. In 2013-2014, in the so-called Great Mound, the tallest tumulus in a group interpreted as a depiction of the constellation of Orion, the tomb of a very important person was discovered and, buried separately, an oak casket filled with gold jewellery. Researchers believe that this was the grave of King Cothelas.

The caryatids still bear traces of the paints that once used to cover their faces

Sboryanovo was also a place for the living. On a narrow and easily defensible plateau by the Teketo River, between the end of the 4th century and the end of the 3rd century BC, a walled city flourished. It was called probably Dausdava or Helis (historians disagree), and occupied over 22 acres. It was home to craftsmen making goods from iron, silver and bone. The population enjoyed Greek wine and olive oil to such an extent that they left behind the most extensive collection of imported amphorae, used to transport these commodities, ever found in ancient Thrace. The city gained additional importance from its position on an ancient salt road.

Dausdava or Helis was rebuilt after a devastating earthquake, but was gradually abandoned and forgotten.

Scores of burial mounds dot the Sboryanovo area

Several shrines of the Getae have also been identified in Sboryanovo. The most interesting of these is a good example of the Balkan tradition of subsequent generations of different religions continuing to remember and pray at sites thought to be sacred.

In the 1st millennium BC, the Thracians created a shrine with rock altars and strong walls by the cold waters of a spring, which is now called the Five-Fingers Spring. The sanctuary was probably devoted to the Thracian Rider God. When Christianity arrived in the 5-6th centuries, the site was abandoned.

It was revived in the 16th century, when the Tekke, or shrine, of the Muslim sage Demir Baba was built over the ancient remains, and pilgrimages to the sacred spring began anew. The Tekke is still visited by both Muslims and Christians, who believe that Demir Baba will cure their illnesses. The hexagonal stone tomb of the sage stands directly over the rock altars of the ancient Thracians.

The 16th century Demir Baba Muslim shrine was built over the remains of a Thracian sanctuary

Restoring the Sveshtari Tomb

Foreign help to preserve the archaeological heritage of Bulgaria has a long tradition. The Japanese government helped with the preservation of the Aleksandrovo Thracian Tomb and the construction of a replica and a modern visitor centre. The America for Bulgaria Foundation initiated the restoration of two late-Antiquity sites in Plovdiv, the Small Basilica and the Bishop's Basilica.

US Ambassador Eric Rubin announces the conservation of the Sveshtari Tomb project

Now Eric Rubin, the American Ambassador to Bulgaria, has announced a plan to improve the condition of the Sveshtari Tomb. Annually over 50,000 people visit the site and the current infrastructure is unable to deal with the influx as to preserve the frescoes and the sculptures, strict levels of temperature and humidity have to be maintained inside the tomb. That is why the American Embassy has donated $184,000 for the conservation, restoration and a modernised display of the Sveshtari Tomb.

Fresco of the Great Goddess giving eternal life to a deified Thracian king, Sveshtari Thracian Tomb

This is the latest addition to the list of historical and archaeological sites in Bulgaria helped by funding from the American Embassy. From 2002, restoration and conservation projects were implemented in the St John Aliturgetos Church in Nesebar, early Christian tombs in Sofia, a Thracian tomb near Kran, Kurshum Mosque in Silistra, some ancient mosaics from Plovdiv, and the Library and Mosque of Osman Pazvantoglu in Vidin.

High Beam is a series of articles, initiated by Vagabond Magazine, with the generous support of the America for Bulgaria Foundation, that aims to provide details and background of places, cultural entities, events, personalities and facts of life that are sometimes difficult to understand for the outsider in the Balkans. The ultimate aim is the preservation of Bulgaria's cultural heritage – including but not limited to archaeological, cultural and ethnic diversity. The statements and opinionsexpressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the America for Bulgaria Foundation and its partners.

From early humans to Romans and natural wonders Serbia holds many unknown marvels

Living in Bulgaria means one is spoilt for travelling choices in the region. Due to this country's position at a geographical crossroads, one only needs a few hours to reach fascinating places like Istanbul, the Gothic cities of Romania or some of the best beaches of Greece.

Eastern Serbia is not usually included in this group. Undeservedly so. Located northwest of Bulgaria, the region is rich in exciting sights to visit, enjoy, and explore. Most of them are concentrated along the Danube at the Iron Gates Gorge (called Đerdap in Serbian). This region has the raw and menacing beauty of nature untamed, and is packed full with prehistoric, Roman and Mediaeval sites created by the generations who travelled, fought, traded, lived and died there.

Đerdap National Park

Divided between Serbia and Romania, this 134-kilometre stretch of the Danube has for millennia been arguably the most dangerous part of the river's course. The accounts of travellers who passed through it are full of descriptions of hair-rising whirlpools and wrecks that claimed countless lives. The construction of two dams in the 1960s-1980s in the gorge changed the river forever. Its waters were calmed, and travel became easier. Even so, the cliff-like banks of the gorge remain an impressive sight, a combination of the fearsome and the beautiful.

The dams are not man's first effort to tame the Iron Gates Gorge. The Romans built a road along it, using beams fitted into the rock.

Today, a road runs along the whole course of the gorge, allowing you to enjoy the scenery in the moments when you are not busy negotiating its curves and bends.

Golubac Fortress

Guarding the entrance to the Iron Gates Gorge, Golubac Fortress epitomises the idea of a mediaeval fortification. Its turrets and walls rise from the rocks of a bend in the river, as menacing and massive as they might have looked when they were built in the 14th century over the remains of older Roman and Byzantine fortifications. Throughout the centuries it changed hands numerous times, often violently, among all the major power in the region, mediaeval Bulgaria included. More recently, the ruin became infamous for another blood-thirsty inhabitant, the particularly aggressive local mosquitoes.

Today only the highest parts of the fortress are visible, as the rest was flooded after the construction of the first dam at the Iron Gates in the 1960s.

Giant Decebalus Monument

This is a Mount Rushmore-style portrait of Decebalus, the ancient leader of the Dacians. At the turn of the 1st and the 2nd century he opposed Emperor Trajan. Trajan did defeat him and to celebrate the victory he erected his famous column in Rome. The huge head of Decebalus was carved into the steep walls of the Iron Gates gorge in 1994-2004 by a Romanian entrepreneur.

It is 42.9 m high and 31.6 m wide and claims to be Europe's tallest relief.

The best way to see the giant Decebalus, which is actually in Romanian territory, is from the Serbian bank of the river.

Lepenski Vir Archaeological Site

In the Mesolithic period, about 11,000 years ago, people lived by the banks of the Iron Gates Gorge. They were itinerant hunter gatherers, but would return regularly to settlements they made along the river. Their existence was discovered in the 1960s, during the construction of the first dam in the gorge. Archaeologists surveying the area at Lepenski Vir that was about to be flooded were astonished to discover a settlement of strange, trapezoid huts and stone sculptures depicting bizarre creatures combining fish and human features. Dating from about 6,000BC, at that time they were the oldest known examples of large-scale sculptural art in history.

The dam was considered more important than the prehistorical settlement, but Lepenski Vir was saved. The whole site was lifted, huts and all, from its original place and moved to a higher location, similarly to Abu Simbel when the Aswan Dam in Egypt was being constructed. It is still there, a modern exhibition space, sponsored by the US government, where you can stare at the strange fish-like sculptures straight in their goggly eyes.

Felix Romuliana

In 298 AD, the Roman Emperor Galerius celebrated his victory over Sassanid Iran in a truly imperial fashion. He created a whole city at his birthplace, near the modern town of Zajecar. He called it Felix Romuliana, after his mother Romula. The city had everything required for comfortable living - from baths with hot mineral springs to temples to fortifications. Soon, however, history proved that the location of Felix Romuliana had been chosen too optimistically. The city stood in the path of continued attacks by the Barbarians, and was abandoned after a Hun raid in the 5th century. Today Felix Romuliana, albeit far from its past splendour, is an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Manasija Monastery

A combination of mediaeval fortification and a place of worship, the Manasija Monastery is the closest of Serbia's great monasteries to Bulgaria. Founded in the early 15th century, it is protected by a massive wall with turrets, recently restored to its full height. The Holy Trinity church, which is in the ornate Morava architectural style, has also been restored, but it still preserves genuine mediaeval murals, including a portrait of the founder of the monastery, Prince Stefan Lazarević. The pastoral landscape of gentle rolling hills around is a bonus.

Smederevo Fortress

Located on the Danube and built in 1427-1430, Smederevo Fortress was initially the centre of Serbian resistance against the Ottoman invasion of Europe. It did not hold out long: in 1456 the Ottomans took the fortress, putting an end to independent Serbia. Due to its strategic location, however, Smederevo Fortress was preserved and enlarged in the following centuries. Today only old photos show the past expanse of the structure because in the Second World War it sustained heavy damage in bombing raids. What has survived is still worthy of a visit: an empty shell of a fortification walls by the Danube, frequented by locals for weekend walks and picnics.

The Wine and Graves of Rajac

Just over the border from Bulgaria, the village of Rajac combines fun and contemplation. A place of beautifully preserved traditional houses, Rajac is locally famed for its wines, available for tasting in taverns, cellars and even residents' garages. The local tourists love it. Rajac cemetery is a completely different matter (although there is a wine cellar nearby). Its grand and weathered old tombstones are elaborately carved with symbols of Christianity and paganism, and the fact that they largely lack inscriptions make them even more fascinating.

We are pleased and happy to announce that Vagabond's long-standing contributor, Kapka Kassabova, has just won the 2018 British Academy’s Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding worth £25,000.

Border, her memoir-cum-travelogue about Bulgaria's southeastern frontier from Communism to the present, was published in 2017 to international acclaim. The book explores the history, trauma and memories of a region that brings together three Balkans states: Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey. According to the jury, Border won because it "contributed to global cultural understanding" and "illuminates the interconnections and divisions that shape cultural identity worldwide."

Bulgarian-born Kapka Kassabova has lived in New Zealand and is currently based in Scotland. She writes fiction, non-fiction and poetry in English, and has become one of the most recognisable voices of Bulgaria. She has been with Vagabond from the very start. More on Borderhere.

Earlier this year Kapka Kassabova wrote the introductory essay to The High Road, Photography From Scotland, a photography exhibition by Vagabond editor Anthony Georgieff, displayed in Sofia, Burgas and Veliko Tarnovo.

The brutal rape and murder of an young, attractive woman has exposed this country's deep problems with government, public trust in institutions, media freedoms, racism and gender issues, and the blurred line between journalism and political activism.

What happened?

On a Sunday, while the Facebook quarrels on the quality of Central Sofia's renovation works were losing momentum, a piece of disturbing news spread over. A young woman was raped and murdered in the northern city of Ruse, in broad daylight.

The victim was 30-year-old Viktoria Marinova, a producer at a local TV station. She was assaulted and strangled while jogging in a park by the River Danube. Marinova, unknown outside her hometown, had covered mainly lifestyle issues. A new show she was going to produce would focus on current affairs. Its first, and last, run included an insert of an interview with a Bulgarian and a Romanian journalist belonging to an Internet site, Bivol (meaning Buffalo), with claims in investigative journalism. The pair had been briefly detained a couple of weeks previously by the Bulgarian police while they reportedly investigated the destruction of evidence allegedly showing that a Bulgarian construction company, GP Group, stole EU funds while working on large-scale public projects including the abovementioned reconstruction of Central Sofia.

Viktoria Marinova's brutal killing instantly became top news. Hundreds of people were quick to organise vigils in her memory in Ruse, Sofia, Plovdiv and Varna. The murder attracted global attention, too. Major news outlets like the BBC, Time, The Times, The Guardian, the CNN, The Washington Post and so on covered it. Her face was all over the social networks. EU dignitaries and politicians, foreign diplomats and UN Secretary General António Guterres expressed concern about the heinous crime, pressing the Bulgarian government for a quick and transparent investigation. The American Embassy in Sofia offered police assistance.

Several days after Marinova's death, an young man from Ruse was arrested near Hamburg, Germany. He was accused of raping and killing Marinova, possibly under the influence of alcohol and narcotics, then fleeing to Germany where his mother lived. The police had uncovered DNA evidence linking him to Marinova's corpse. He was also filmed by CCTV to be interacting with the woman in the park.

Viktoria Marinova was obviously not the first woman to be killed in Bulgaria in 2018. Her case attracted such a huge amount of international attention because of her profession. In a year that saw increased aggression against journalists all over the world, global sensitivity on the topic is high. For the Bulgarians, however, her death shed light on this nation's biggest problems and so attracted more attention and passions than usual.

Lack of trust in Bulgaria's police, persecution and judicial system

Soon after the news of the killing spread over the Internet, three details spawned suspicion that the authorities, with the help of the servile media, were putting together a coverup.

First, the crime hit the news with a day's delay. Second, the police were quick to suggest that Marinova's job was the least probable reason for the murder. And third, a number of major news outlets reported that the victim was not a journalist, but a "business woman," which in Bulgaria has strong negative connotations. Her former husband was a co-owner of the TV station she worked for and she was on its board.

The Bulgarian police and prosecution have a long history of botching investigations big and small. Instead of going to jail, convicted underworld bosses leave the country never to be seen again. Hashed forensic evidence results in failures in court. A number of high profile assassinations remain unsolved. Journalists have discovered pieces of evidence on crime scenes after forensics teams have left. Anyone who has had to report a home burglary is certain that the police will probably not do much. As a result, citizens do not bother to report crimes against themselves. According to the Interior Ministry, 45 percent of the reported crimes in 2017 were solved, a drop of 3 percent on an year earlier.

The Bulgarian lack of trust in the police is also evident in opinion polls. According to Alpha Research Polling Agency, as few as 20 percent of the Bulgarians tend to trust their police. According to the same poll, just 14 percent trust the courts.

In short, for a number of reasons Bulgarians believe that a crime investigation would most likely fail either because the police, the prosecution and the judiciary are incompetent or because they are corrupt. The former would be more probable if the victim and the perpetrator are ordinary people, while the latter is more likely in cases of wealthier and better connected felons. Owing to that, and because this is the Balkans, all kinds of conspiracy theories flourish.

In the case of Marinova, even when the alleged murderer was arrested and made a full confession a number of Bulgarians refused to accept it. They were convinced that he was either set up by the police or had been paid by someone very powerful and well-connected to make a political assassination appear like a killing.

Partisan "journalists," "opinion leaders"

As soon as Marinova's murder hit the news, social media influencers, fringe politicians and the hacks began peddling the hypothesis that she was killed because of her reporting on high-level corruption. Marinova was the first to cover the so-called GP-gate on TV, they claimed, and she planned to uncover more on corruption in Bulgaria. She was punished for breaking the omertà that binds mainstream Bulgaria media.

The reality, however, was quite different. The TV station where Marinova worked was small, with limited influence outside its broadcast area in the town of Ruse. Before the insert that supposedly caused her death was aired, a number of more prominent news outlets had covered the story. Besides, it was not Marinova who did the interview on the GP-gate in the first place. Her colleagues in Ruse spoke out that she had never been threatened before she was murdered.

The overreaction of some Bulgarian journalists that turned Marinova into a martyr for press freedoms was the result of declining media standards. Some of the most vocal Bulgarian journalists at the moment are political activists rather than reporters. They use facts selectively to fit their opinions and share them widely on the free-for-all social media.

Bulgaria is interesting to the foreign media only when something really bad happens

This country is sufficiently provincial not to generate any news on a regular basis. No terrorism or natural disasters, no oil fields, no nuclear weapons. No stunning achievements in industry or culture.

This means not only lack of coverage but also lack of expert opinion on the intricacies of Bulgarian political and public life. When something internationally newsworthy happens, the foreign media usually rely, often unquestioningly, on local hacks. What is possible often gets represented as actual fact.

Viktoria Marinova, heretofore unheard of outside her hometown, was thus represented as a famous TV reporter and an established investigative journalist murdered over her job, a Bulgarian Anna Politkovskaya.

Bulgarian media freedoms are hardly enviable. Since Boyko Borisov's GERB came to power in 2009, media freedoms have been steadily declining. At present, Bulgaria is rock bottom in the EU. Prominent and not-so-prominent journalists have lost or have been threatened to lose their jobs not only for asking the "wrong" questions and covering the "wrong" stories, but also because of their refusal to ask the "right" ones. Media ownership is at best opaque, which has turned some of the most influential media outlets into weapons for hit jobs against opponents to the owner, the government or whoever is close to the management. As advertisement revenues have declined, a number of media have become conveniently polite to the government where Boyko Borisov holds the purse of the much-desired EU advertising funds.

The situation in the media outside Sofia is even worse. In the smaller towns, including Ruse, people know one another. For local overlords it is easy to put pressure on any journalist who has dared to sniff around. As a result, most of the regional media outlets in Bulgaria have become public relations crutches to whoever Boyko Borisov has appointed to a position of power.

That is why when some colleagues of Viktoria Marinova said that she was hardly killed because of her job, few in Bulgaria believed them. They don't dare to tell the truth, the Facebook lynch mob declared.In this environment, turning a young woman killed in a sexual crime into a whistleblowing martyr was only too easy.

Authoritarian government

The Bulgarian media does look Orwellian. The reason is that under Boyko Borisov the country has become increasingly authoritarian.

The EU does pay attention to the bad guys in Hungary and Poland, but it has spectacularly failed to take in Bulgaria where Boyko Borisov and his lieutenants have stayed on this path for much longer. In the 10 years since he came to power, Borisov has acted as a feudal chieftain who solves all problems the moment they appear. In addition to his habitual ribbon-cutting of new asphalt roads, he is seen as increasing the wages of the police, he "finds" money for the construction of sports facilities, he sends a government airplane to bring a famous actor who has fallen sick into a better hospital.

The servile media willingly make his actions into front-page news stories.

The chief reason Borisov is seen in the EU and the West as a good guy, in contrast to Viktor Orban, is because he says he is pro-EU and rarely voices any dissent.

In the wake of Marinova's murder, however, Borisov's famously warm connections with the EU's top brass turned sour. As soon as the chief suspect was identified, Bulgaria's prime minister called in 36 Western diplomats in Sofia to complain about how the foreign media had covered the killing in particular and Bulgaria in general. "I read monstrous things about Bulgaria and not a single one of those was true," he said before the meeting. "The Bulgarian media have the full freedom to say and write whatever they want," he intoned.

He also acted the way he knows best. As a former fireman turned into an overlord presiding over his fiefdom, he ordered the by now infamous GP Group to be excluded from all public projects it was involved in until it became clear whether the company had stolen EU funds. A couple of days later, the company complied and extracted itself from several public procurement deals for major infrastructure projects it had won in legitimate public tenders and bids.

The speed of Borisov's reaction in the wake of Marinova's killing was not only because of the external pressure. The journalist's murder was on the verge of becoming a rallying cry for Bulgarians disaffected with Borisov's rule. Largely, such people are apathetic and only voice their opinions on Facebook. A high-profile crime, however, could energise a critical number of citizens, and the result could be unpredictable. Borisov already saw this: in 2013 he resigned after mass protests against rising utility costs and the self-immolations of a dozen citizens.

Bulgaria's racist problem

Not all theories about who killed Viktoria Marinova were about corruption and lack of media freedoms. Long before the alleged perpetrator was arrested many, including the editor-in-chief of a leading newspaper, claimed that she was the victim of a "Gypsy crime." These claims echoed a popular sentiment among Bulgarians that the most heinous crimes could be perpetrated only by non-Bulgarians, like the Roma, whom the overwhelming majority of Bulgarians consider to be subhuman, or the Muslim immigrants.

After 1989 the Gypsy community suffered high unemployment and declining education which logically led to higher crime rates. These are mostly petty crimes, but it is petty crimes that are the most visible, particularly in small towns and villages. That is why for ordinary Bulgarians if there is a crime, it is most probably Gypsy work. The inefficiency of the police in dealing with such cases has resulted in a strong belief that Gypsy criminals enjoy special privileges and can do whatever they want, and then go unpunished.

Politicians have already exploited these sentiments. One of GERB's partners in the government, Ataka, rose to prominence in the 2000s mainly on its anti-Roma rhetoric.

Gender issues

The notion that a genuine Bulgarian is unable to rape and kill a woman has run particularly strong in aftermath of Marinova's murder.

In actual fact, Bulgarian women do get raped and killed by Bulgarian men, often in cases of domestic violence. Statistics are elusive. 2018 is the first year when the National Statistical Institute has covered violence against women. According to some data, an average of two women are killed in Bulgaria each month, mainly by their partners or other relatives.

Marinova's murder attracted a lot of compassion, but with victims of domestic abuse it is hardly the case. Domestic abuse remains largely a taboo. Bulgarians are reluctant to report it to the police, leaving the couple "to solve their own problems." The police is also ineffective in the protection of victims of domestic violence. When a woman is murdered in such circumstances, the public opinion is rarely on her side. Bulgarians are quick to blame the victim for her own death. The sentiments range from the "she must have done something to provoke such anger in him" to the "she should have left him" to "what about men suffering psychological abuse from their wives."

Earlier this year, an acrimonious campaign scared Bulgarians out of the Istanbul Convention for prevention of violence against women. The #MeToo movement has had zero resonance and effect in Bulgaria.

The more things change, the more they stay the same

Viktoria Marinova was quickly forgotten after it emerged her murder had nothing to do with the notorious Bivol site and its alleged investigations.

Global public attention shifted to the case of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi. In Bulgaria, some fingers were pointed at journalistic ethics, police efficiency, lack of trust in the institutions and Borisov's behaviour.

The Bulgarian government did not change its ways, and neither did the media. A week after Marinova's murder, the only reminder of her were the shrines made by the attendees of the vigils in her memory. Activists-cum-journalists and social media influencers busied themselves with the next scandal of the day with the same sense of infallibility and self-aggrandisement with which they had blown out of proportion the murder of the young woman and mother of a six-year-old child in Ruse. Ruse itself remained the backwater it had been when Viktoria Marinova was alive. Bivol did not apologise for using the terrible rape and murder case to stir up some publicity for itself. Investigative journalism failed to sprout.

Bulgarian drivers and their behaviour on the road are the stuff of urban lore. You will be hearing horror stories about them. Some of those may be true, others may not. Driving in Bulgaria is more dangerous compared to Wyoming, but absolutely a piece of cake if you have survived southern Italy. One thing that cannot be disputed about driving in this country is that it is be a memorable adventure.

Motorways in Bulgaria are being built slowly and often substandardly, and there are just two fully completed high-speed roads, connecting Sofia to Burgas on the Black Sea and to Svilengrad on the border with Turkey and Greece. Most first-class roads are OK, but most secondary roads may be problematic. Streets and pavements in the bigger cities, including Central Sofia, are dire. Anywhere you go, watch out for potholes that tend to appear without warning. The road authorities may take a while to fix them.

Signage, if it exists, is at best misleading. Do pay attention to the signs you pass and you will discover that they often give controversial information about mileage. This is the tip of the iceberg. While driving in Bulgaria, you will see signs that point you into the wrong direction or to no direction at all. You will see Road Under Construction signs, and then there will be no construction on the road – and vice versa. Forget about the numerous well-lit diversion signs on Western motorways that appear miles ahead. In Bulgaria you will be lucky if you see a lamp stuck on a pole just ahead of a deviation.

In such circumstances, asking for directions becomes an integral part of any off-the-beaten-track trip in the country. This, however, brings out new problems. Bulgarians tend to use local toponyms that mean the world to them but are impenetrable to outsiders. One example, taken from real life: "When you reach the old bath house…" Bulgarians also tend to prefer directions involving "up the road" or "down there" rather than "left," "right" and "straight ahead."

Like the Germans, Bulgarian drive fast and aggressively. Unlike the Germans, they will rarely give you way if you are trying to get onto a major road from a small one. The rule of thumb is the flashier the car, the more aggressive the driver. Flashing lights in your rearview mirror means the driver behind you thinks you are too slow and tells you "Get out of my way." Flashing lights in front of you does not mean "I give you way," but "There are cops round the bend."

Traffic cops in Bulgaria are a part of the problem, not of the solution. They lurk under bridges and behind bushes and will give you hell, especially if you drive on foreign number plates. You will never see them cruising around in pursuit of maniacal drivers but you may meet them at service stations having coffee. Cops used to be notoriously corrupt. Truth be told, corruption now seems to have ebbed away.

The residents of Sofia constantly whine about congestion and the rush hour traffic jams. The situation is bad, but if you end up sitting on the road, relax. Sit back and think of the M25 in London.

It is not that there are too many cars or that the roads are too narrow for them. It is a matter of traffic organisation, one of the weakest points of Sofia City Council. You will see that whatever you do your next traffic light will be red. This causes most of the driving trouble in the city, but apparently the City Council people are unable to fathom it.

Again, regardless of the thousands of horror stories about driving in Bulgaria you are unlikely to have an accident if you follow the simply rule: "Drive defensively, defensively, defensively."

High Beam is a series of articles, initiated by Vagabond Magazine, with the generous support of the America for Bulgaria Foundation, that aims to provide details and background of places, cultural entities, events, personalities and facts of life that are sometimes difficult to understand for the outsider in the Balkans. The ultimate aim is the preservation of Bulgaria's cultural heritage – including but not limited to archaeological, cultural and ethnic diversity. The statements and opinionsexpressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the America for Bulgaria Foundation and its partners.

The human penchant for spotting visual patterns in seemingly chaotic landscapes, preferring false positives to false negatives, has been crucial for survival. For thousands of years, the ones who lived long enough to pass their genes to the next generation were the ones able to spot the lion hidden in the bush. Even when there was no lion at all.

Today, we mostly use this subconscious skill to see Jesus face on toast bread and to "read" clouds, tea leaves and coffee powder. Strange rock formations are high on the list, too. Since times immemorial people have been fascinated by strangely shaped pieces of rocks and cliffs, seeing in them human faces and bodies, a menagerie of animals, gods and devils petrified for eternity.

Bulgaria has its fair share of strangely shaped rocks that will turn any travel into a Rorschach test challenge. Many also come with legends to match.

SINEMORETS ECO PATHSTwo coastal eco trails head north and south of Sinemorets, a village on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast within the territory of the Strandzha nature park. The southern eco trail will also take you to a couple of wild, unprotected beaches: Lipite and Listi.

The educational purpose of both eco trails was to show tourists the different volcanic rocks on the shoreline and to explain how were they formed. The information signs, however, have long faded. The trails now continue to exist mainly due to the constant stream of people trying to reach Listi or Lipite beaches.

Let lack of information not discourage you. The volcanic rocks are still there, creating a surreal landscape.

POBITI KAMANIOne of Bulgaria's most surreal landscapes is a short drive from Varna. Spreading over 600 acres, the Pobiti Kamani, or Thumped Stones, fit the name perfectly: among a windswept, sandy expanse dotted with shrubs stone pillar after stone pillar rise. Most are relatively small, but some reach up to seven meters in height and three meters in diameter.

The rock columns make the unnerving impression that they are manmade. In reality, they appeared millions of years ago. How exactly remains unclear. Some say that they are the remains of primeval organisms: prehistoric coral reefs or petrified trees.

STONE PILLARS AT MECHKA VILLAGEThe two stone pillars, rising up to 2.5 and 12 metres by Mechka, a village on the Danube bank near Ruse, were probably formed in the Mesozoic, when dinosaurs roamed the earth. For the local Bulgarians, however, these formidable rocks are linked to mythical hero Krali Marko. In a show of his strength, he is said to have lifted the larger rock of the couple merely with the tip of his finger.

PROVARTENIK ROCK, NEAR KARLUKOVOImpressive is an understatement for this rock rising over the Iskar, in the karst-defined part of the river's course, near Karlukovo. From a distance, it looks like a Mayan pyramid, misshapen by the passing aeons. And it has a perfectly round hole on its top, conjuring images of ancient civilisations worshiping sun.

The Provartenik is actually natural phenomenon.

Plenty of people, though, are still sure that it was made deliberately as an observatory for the winter and summer solstices.

STONE MUSHROOMS OF BELI PLASTBy the road close to the Rhodope village of Beli Plast there stands a group of stone mushrooms. The most spectacular of them rises up to 2.5 m. This phenomenon is the result of underwater volcanic activity, combined with erosion when the sea, which used to cover most of what is now the Rhodope, withdrew.

As with many strangely shaped rocks, the Stone Mushrooms became the stuff of legends. An old tale suggests that these were petrified Bulgarian girls who preferred brave death to falling into the hands of Ottoman invaders. A newer one claims that the zeolite rock the natural phenomenon is made of has almost magical healing powers. You only need a chunk of it in your drinking water, supposedly.

KORABITE ROCKS BY SINEMORETS

To see one of the most photographed rocks on the Bulgarian Black Sea shore you don't even need to leave Sinemorets. All you have to do is to go to the St Yani rocky bay and look for a pair of rocks that resemble ships of stone. Now you know why they are called Korabite, or The Ships.

A local legend connects the place with a sinister past. Back in the days, the people of Sinemorets were engaged in a rather nasty form of pirating. In stormy weather they used to light fires on the shore, luring passing ships to false safety. Then they looted the shipwrecks.

The place where those maleficent fires burnt? Korabite Rocks, of course.

PALIKARI ROCKS IN SOZOPOL

Located by the seaside promenade at the northern part of Sozopol's Old Town (the one without a fake ancient fortress wall), the Palikari Rocks are one of the city's symbols.

Their name means a boy in Greek, the language that since Sozopol's foundation in the 6th century BC until the state-organised population exchanges in the 1920s used to dominate local soundscape.

The name is explained by the story of a local boy who loved diving from the rocks, exploring an underwater cave beneath. One day, however, a storm arose. The boy was trapped in the cave. He never resurfaced again.

A hint: If you know from where and when to look at the Palikari Rocks, you will discover that they quite surprisingly resemble the Easter Island stone heads.

STONE MUSHROOMS BY SINI RID VILLAGE

The three stone mushrooms by the Sini Rid village, near Ruen in the eastern reaches of the Stara Planina, are among the lesser known phenomena of the kind in Bulgaria. They rise up to four meters and are the result of wind, water and time working on the soft lime rocks.

They are also the last remaining trace of the village of Dobrovan, which ceased to exist in 1963. Consequently, they are also called Dobrovanski Mushrooms.

TYULENOVO VILLAGE

The rocks and cliffs near Tyulenovo village, north of Kavarna, form arguably the most picturesque part of the northern Bulgarian Black Sea coast. Coves and stone pillars, arches and hidden caves licked and beaten by the sea waves: the coast here looks as if created by a crazy superhuman sculptor on a particularly creative day.

While other strangely shaped rocks have tragic legends explaining how they appeared, the Tyulenovo rocks have witnessed a real-life tragedy. Until the 1970s, the cliffs and hidden coves and caves were the home of a colony of monk seals (hence Tyulenovo, or Seal Village). By the late-1970s, the local fishermen had already wiped out the seals because they damaged their nets. Now there are neither nets, nor seals.

THE SHIP ROCKS, ST ANASTASIA ISLAND

St Anastasia Island, off Burgas, is rocky and covering just 5 acres, but it has accumulated more history than its humble size suggests. It has been inhabited at least since the 4th-6th centuries AD, and in the Middle Ages monastery dedicated to St Anastasia was erected on it. In 1923, the Bulgarian government closed the monastery and turned the island into a political prison for members of the persecuted Agrarian Party and the Bulgarian Communist Party. That is why under Communism the island was renamed to Bolshevik. In the 1960s-1980s, the island became one of the favourite haunts for both tourists and the Burgas bohemians, who loved the rugged terrain, the marvellous vistas of Burgas Bay and the cheap restaurant. With democratisation after 1989, the island's old name was restored. Regular transportation was terminated and the restaurant was closed. For years, the only people on St Anastasia were the keepers of the lighthouse, which was first built in 1888, and in 1914 was replaced with the structure still in operation today. The end of St Anastasia's desolation came in 2014, when the Burgas City Council brought back the island onto the local tourist map. The monastery was restored into a museum, restaurant, hotel.

And there are the Ship Rocks. They indeed look like a stranded vessel.

According to a colourful legend, when pirates attacked the island in an effort to retrieve a hidden treasure, the monks prayed for salvation. Consequently, the invaders' ship turned to stone.

High Beam is a series of articles, initiated by Vagabond Magazine, with the generous support of the America for Bulgaria Foundation, that aims to provide details and background of places, cultural entities, events, personalities and facts of life that are sometimes difficult to understand for the outsider in the Balkans. The ultimate aim is the preservation of Bulgaria's cultural heritage – including but not limited to archaeological, cultural and ethnic diversity. The statements and opinionsexpressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the America for Bulgaria Foundation and its partners.

Recently, Bulgaria has become a staple in the Internet lists compiling the oddest abandoned places in the world with a building whose creators hardly imagined, not even in their darkest nightmares, the way it stands now: the Memorial House of the Bulgarian Communist Party at Buzludzha.

The complex of an assembly hall and an huge tower of exposed concrete was built on Stara Planina's Mount Buzludzha in 1981. It was meant to be a celebration of the 90th anniversary of the foundation of the predecessor of the BKP, which had been founded at that mount.

On 2 September 1891, a group of Socialists, led by Dimitar Blagoev, used as a cover the mass gathering commemorating the revolutionary band led by Hadzhi Dimitar, who had been defeated at Buzludzha by the Ottomans in 1868. They needed the precautionary measure as the then government was at least unsympathetic to the young Bulgarian Socialist movement. This was how the Bulgarian Socialist Democratic Party, or BSDP, came into being.

The Bulgarian Communist Party claimed to be the direct heir of the BSDP. Its top brass were aware that 1981 was the best year to celebrate the continuity. At the time, Bulgaria was in the midst of the celebrations of the 1,300th anniversary of its foundation. With the monument on Buzludzha, the BKP wanted to publicly declare its place in the age-long history of the nation and in its future.

The decision for the building of a congress centre for the BKP elite on Buzludzha was taken in 1971. Construction work began in 1974. A significant investment of 14 million leva was needed, but a solution for it was found quickly: the project was to be financed by "voluntary" contributions of 0.5 leva deducted from the salaries of all working Bulgarians. The construction itself was given to the Construction Corps joined by volunteers.

The weather on Mount Buzludzha is notoriously harsh and unstable, making construction of the monument a hard task. According to some accounts, several construction workers died during the building process. The Communist authorities never acknowledged the deaths

The architect, Georgi Stoilov, created a building that was simultaneously futuristic and brutalist. It dominated the environment, could be seen from miles away and easily conveyed the project's message: the BKP's roots are deep, the party is here to stay.

The dimensions were overwhelming. The round conference hall, which gained the monument the monicker Flying Saucer, had a diameter of 42 metres and was 14.5 metres high. A 70 - metre-tall tower rose next to it. It was decorated with 12 - metre-tall red stars, rumoured to be made of rubies.

The interior decoration was entrusted to established artists and sculptors including Velichko Minekov, Valentin Starchev and Yoan Leviev. The mosaics in the assembly hall included portraits of Marx, Lenin and Todor Zhivkov while the murals in the corridors extoll "peaceful labour." The titles of the various artworks are self-explanatory: A Figure of Those Who Burn in Struggle Eternally; Workers of the World, Unite!; Fifth Congress of the BKP; Bulgarian-Soviet Friendship, and so on.

The builders of Buzludzha faced a variety of challenges. The mountain top had to be artificially flattened, the weather was sometimes extreme, roads leading up to the complex had to be built. There were labour accidents, some of them resulting in fatalities.

Visiting the assembly hall is no longer possible as the monument was sealed off for safety reasons

The Memorial House was inaugurated personally by Todor Zhivkov on 23 August 1981. In the following years the building came to symbolise the victorious Communist party. However, few at the time knew that owing to poor workmanship the building had serious technical deficiencies even on the day it was inaugurated. Shortly thereafter some of its installations had to undergo a major overhaul.

The collapse of the regime in 1989 turned Buzludzha into an anachronism. It became the target for anyone who wanted to express their negative sentiments for Communism or, pressed by the economic crisis and destitution, was in search for any scrap material. As Todor Zhivkov was pulled down from his position as the supreme party and state leader, the party leadership decided to scrape his face off the mosaics. In 1992 the building was nationalised along all other BKP property, and consequently started to fall apart.

The aluminium window frames were lifted for scrap metal, the window panes were broken, the furniture got carried away. Some used shotguns to shatter the red stars in the hope some rubies would fall down. However, it emerged that the stars had actually been made of red glass.In the course of just a few years the building, which has been supposed to epitomise the triumph of Communism in Bulgaria, turned into a ghostly ruin.

The Stara Planina seen from the Buzludzha monument

However, the monument has not been forgotten. At the beginning of August every year the Bulgarian Socialist Party, the heir to the BKP, organises a traditional rally near the abandoned monument. It is an event that gathers ageing public that indulges in outdated songs and fervent speeches. In the 2010s the BSP and the state began arguing on who and how to take care of the building. Meanwhile, the destruction reached a point that, due to safety concerns, the entrances to the monument were sealed.

Still, whoever wants to get into Buzludzha can always find a way, especially if they are photographers. While the devastation continues, the monument's online popularity grows. When entry into it was relatively easy, bikers got inside the assembly hall to rev up their engines. The walls are covered in graffiti of varied artistic merits. Visitors climb up the huge letters once depicting stanzas from the Communist Internationale and Song of Labour in search for better selfie opportunities. Some particularly daring newly-weds do photo shoots inside the assembly hall.

The Buzludzha monument has become a part of contemporary mass culture. The building featured in The Mechanic: Resurrection (2016) starring Jason Statham, Jessica Alba and Tommy Lee Jones. The movie was shot in Bulgaria, but for artistic purposes the Buzludzha monument was "moved" to the Black Sea. A fictitious description of the monument is also in Elizabeth Kostova's novel, The Shadow Land (2017).

In recent years some projects emerged to reconstruct the monument through virtual reality or turn it into a history museum with a panorama lift in the tower.

Most of the time, however, Buzludzha is empty – without adventurers, nostalgic Socialists or inquisitive tourists.

Mosaic portraits of (from left) Engels, Marx and Lenin, the defining figures of world Communism

"Workers of the World, Unite!": the slogan of the Communists from Marx's Communist Manifesto, is the centrepiece of the assembly hall

High Beam is a series of articles, initiated by Vagabond Magazine, with the generous support of the America for Bulgaria Foundation, that aims to provide details and background of places, cultural entities, events, personalities and facts of life that are sometimes difficult to understand for the outsider in the Balkans. The ultimate aim is the preservation of Bulgaria's cultural heritage – including but not limited to archaeological, cultural and ethnic diversity. The statements and opinionsexpressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the America for Bulgaria Foundation and its partners.

Tranquility combined with landscapes untouched by tourism: if you have a longing to visit, Bulgaria will deliver. Here and there isolated and lesser known villages lay scattered over vales and hills, offering the chance to awaken to bird song, spend the long days exploring quiet lanes and traditional houses, and the evenings contemplating the surrounding vistas, preferably with a glass of cold Rakiya.

If this sounds too good to be true, do check out the villages on our list. While some of them have already been discovered by tourists and in others you will struggle to find a place serving decent drinks, with some planning you will find in these villages an excellent getaway from mass tourism and overdevelopment.

ZHERAVNA

Located in the eastern reaches of the Stara Planina, Zheravna is known to all Bulgarians. This traditional village is the location of some of the most beloved stories by Yordan Yovkov, one of Bulgaria's finest writers.

Even for a visitor unfamiliar with Yovkov's tragic love stories, Zheravna remains romantic. It is a place of grand mansions hidden behind sturdy walls, built in the 18th and 19th centuries when the village thrived on trade, crafts and animal husbandry.

There is one time in the summer, however, when you cannot put Zheravna and tranquillity into the same sentence. For three days in August the village hosts a festival of traditional village clothes, which claims to promote a return to "ancestral roots." In the past few years, however, this event has become overly popular and "patriotic," with politicians attending and vying for the public's attention. If your idea of a romantic getaway excludes crowds, avoid Zheravna at this time. In 2018, the festival is 17-19 August.

BRASHLYAN

This is the most popular village in the Strandzha, and for a reason. Brashlyan is the best preserved example of the traditional local architecture, an idyll of wooden houses and quiet lanes, a picturesque result of depopulation.

The village has its fair share of history. Its church was built in the 17th century over the remains of a pagan shrine. Two of the columns of the ancient sanctuary still serve as candle holders in the church, while an altar dedicated to Zeus does duty as the present altar.

As quiet as it is today, Brashlyan played a role in Bulgaria's more recent history. In 1903, during the suppression of the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising against the Ottomans, several Bulgarian revolutionaries made their last stand in the village. Their heroic death became the subject of a song, "A Bright Moon is Rising," now considered the anthem of the Strandzha. Curiously, the melody was borrowed from a popular Ottoman song about a handsome official who craved love.

KOVACHEVITSA

Tucked into the western slopes of the Rhodope mountains, Kovachevitsa is a well-known place for a romantic getaway in Bulgaria. This is partially due to the fact that this village of magnificent two- and three-storey wooden and stone houses has become a favourite location for moviemakers.

Kovachevitsa appeared in the 15th century and by the 19th century, when its mansions were built, was rich and teeming with life. The community declined rapidly after Communism forced villagers into the cities. By the 1970s, when the moviemakers discovered it, Kovachevitsa had already fallen into decline.

Even when tourists crowd the area, Kovachevitsa remains deliciously quiet. Wandering its steep lanes, peeping into the broken windows and the overgrown yards of its abandoned houses is an experience that evokes the lives of people long gone.

SINCHETS

The name of this Rhodope village should be enough to inspire you to visit: Sinchets means Bachelor's Button, or cornflower. The village itself is an unremarkable collection of newish houses, scattered on the heights between Dzhebel and Ardino. What makes it special is its position among the surrounding peaks and the vistas it offers. According to an urban (or a rural?) legend, in the 1960s an European scientist declared the air between Sinchets and its neighbour Chubrika to be the cleanest in the Balkan Peninsula.

YASNA POLYANA

This village on the eastern slopes of the Strandzha is close enough to the Black Sea to serve as a base for a beach vacation. What makes it truly romantic, however, is that for a couple of years it was the playground of some of the greatest romantics in Bulgarian history: the Tolstoyists.

These young Bulgarians, living at the turn of the 19th and the 20th centuries, were followers of Leo Tolstoy. The Russian author is best known to Westerners for his doorstoppers War and Peace and Anna Karenina, but he also preached the benefits of a life lived close to nature, which irritated both the Russian state and the Russian church, but inspired a number of followers.

In 1906 his Bulgarian fans founded a colony in the village of Alan Kayrak, in the Strandzha. To the bemusement of the locals, the Tolstoyists lived communally, sharing their labour and lives.

The colony lasted until 1908 and, as the time passed, the locals began to cherish the Tolstoyists. In 1934, when the Turkish name of the village was about to be replaced, they chose Yasna Polyana, after the Russian Yasnaya Polyana, where Leo Tolstoy had lived.

Curiously, both Alan Kayrak and Yasna Polyana can be translated as a place in the sun.

Today the village museum tells the story of that community, while the quiet streets of Yasna Polyana are scattered with the results of another idealistic endeavour: the abstract and often surreal wooden sculptures left behind after several symposia on wooden sculpture.

STARO STEFANOVO

This village is one of Bulgaria's best kept secrets, and it is only a short drive off the main Sofia-Varna road. Located near Lovech, Staro Stefanovo is a cluster of houses on a hill. Old and in various stages of deterioration, they show little evidence that the village has been an architectural preserve since 1982. Tourists here are few, and the locals are nowhere to be seen. Some of the houses still bear traces of the decorative murals the village was famed for.

BOZHENTSI

Huddled deep in the Stara Planina mountains, Bozhentsi is a cluster of Revival Period houses and mansions built by what was at the time a vibrant community of artisans and merchants. The village retained its old-world atmosphere after post-1944 urbanisation made most of its younger inhabitants to leave for the cities.

Bozhentsi's legends are also intriguing, one claiming that the village was founded by one Bozhana, an aristocrat fleeing the sack of the Bulgarian medieval capital Tarnovo by the Ottomans, in 1393.

Bozhentsi is an architectural heritage site now, attracting a number of outsiders, which has resulted in the invasion of 4WDs and the lifestyle that goes with the people who usually drive them in Bulgaria. If you visit outside weekends and high summer, however, you will be more or less alone with Bozhenti's stone-roofed houses.

BARDARSKI GERAN

This village is not on any list of must-visit places in Bulgaria, but the drive through one of the drabbest parts of the Danubian Plain is worth it, as Bardarski Geran appears to be straight out of a Central European fairy tale. Its ornate houses and its two Catholic churches evoke the era of the long gone Austrian-Hungarian Empire.

Bardarski Geran appeared after Bulgaria's liberation from the Ottomans. It was founded by Banat Bulgarians, the heirs of Catholic Bulgarians who had fled the brutal repression of the 1688 Chiprovtsi Uprising and settled in the Banat region, currently divided between Romania, Serbia and Hungary. In 1893, the Banat Bulgarians in Bardarski Geran were joined by Saxon German settlers. Both communities had their own churches and customs, introducing to Bulgarian soil their preferred type of architecture, cuisine and culture.

The Germans of Bardarski Geran are no more. They were forced to return to Germany in the final years of the Second World War, leaving behind their church, now a ghostly ruin.

SHIROKA LAKA

Slow, deep and elegiac, the traditional music of the Rhodope lingers in the mind. It is probably best experienced in Shiroka Laka. This village deep in the mountains boasts well preserved traditional houses and streets, and a famous school of Bulgarian traditional music.

Shiroka Laka's romantic atmosphere is not only due to its old architecture and the gusto with which local musicians play their bagpipes. The village is located in one of the most picturesque corners of the Rhodope, surrounded by blue peaks and green meadows. It is hardly a surprise that many believe the legend that Orpheus, the legendary musician from the ancient Greek myths, was born in nearby Gela village.

LESHTEN

Before reaching Kovachevitsa, you pass through another romantic traditional village, Lesthen. While in the 19th century its more famous neighbour used to be the home of wealthy merchants, Leshten was inhabited by less affluent stonemasons who built smaller, humbler homes for their families. These nevertheless impress with their beauty and the ingenuity of their construction, coupled with a marvellous vista of the Pirin mountains across the Mesta Valley.

Leshten became a romantic getaway in the late 1990s, after a couple from Sofia recognised its potential, restored some of the houses and started a small weekend rental business. In the 2000s and the 2010s interest in Lesthen increased.

Sadly, as Leshten is not a protected architectural zone, ugly pseudo-traditional hotels have began to appear. Visit now before they completely spoil the experience.

High Beam is a series of articles, initiated by Vagabond Magazine, with the generous support of the America for Bulgaria Foundation, that aims to provide details and background of places, cultural entities, events, personalities and facts of life that are sometimes difficult to understand for the outsider in the Balkans. The ultimate aim is the preservation of Bulgaria's cultural heritage – including but not limited to archaeological, cultural and ethnic diversity. The statements and opinionsexpressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the America for Bulgaria Foundation and its partners.

Controversial politician of late 19th century still divides Bulgarians

Bulgaria's news cycle nowadays consists largely of real and imaginary scandals that grab the public attention for a while before being buried under a heap of new scandals. In July, however, a small event squeezed through the cracks and made some short-lived noise.

The tomb of politician Stefan Stambolov (1856-1895) in the Sofia Central Cemetery was vandalised. Its bronze bust was stolen and the pediment was damaged.

Vandalism of graves even in Bulgaria's most prestigious cemetery is neither rare nor newsworthy. A plethora of politicians, artists, men and women of prominence and ordinary citizens have had their tombstones damaged, usually by thieves searching for anything they can sell for scrap metal. Stambolov's grave, which was far from being well maintained, could be one of those.

The day of the vandalisation coincided with the anniversary of Stambolov's death, in 1895. Were the two events really connected? Was this a political action and if yes, what had prompted it? So far, no one has claimed responsibility.

More than 120 years after his death, Stefan Stambolov still divides the nation. For some, he was a cunning politician and a patriot who promoted Bulgaria's political and economic independence in the first years after the liberation from the Ottomans. He was a fierce opponent of Russia's meddling in Bulgaria's internal affairs. For others, Stambolov was a bloody tyrant who decimated the opposition, banned newspapers and used violence at election times.

As often happens with prominent historical figures, in the case of Stambolov, both parties are right.

Born in Tarnovo, Stefan Stambolov engaged in the clandestine movement for independence from the Ottomans while he was still a teenager. In 1876 he was the leader of a conspiracy in the Tarnovo region. When the April Uprising broke a few days before schedule, in Panagyurishte, Stambolov failed to raise a sufficient number of rebels. Many of his co-conspirators were captured and either executed or jailed. He managed to flee to Romania.

It was arguably the last time Stambolov showed inability to deal with a situation, at least until his assassination.

In 1878, Bulgaria's sovereignty was restored and the country entered the tumultuous process of state building. Different political ideas clashed, fed by an ultraliberal Constitution that too many a political actor would like to see abolished. Violence against political opponents was rampant while ordinary Bulgarians, who had gone to bed as subjects of the sultan and woken up as people with freedoms and liberties, grew increasingly disillusioned. Meanwhile, institutions had to be established, the economy, deprived of its old Ottoman markets, had to be reorganised, and new infrastructure had to be build. And there was the so-called National Question. Only a fraction of the Bulgarians lived in the Principality of Bulgaria. Most had ended up in the semi-autonomous Ottoman province of Eastern Rumelia, and those in Macedonia and Aegean Thrace remained under direct Ottoman control.

Stambolov eagerly joined the chaotic Bulgarian politics of the day, siding with the Liberal Party. In 1879 he became an MP in spite of the fact that he was under 30, the required age to stand. He supported the unification of what was considered Bulgarian national territories and schemed for the resignation of the Conservative Party government. When Prince Alexander I of Battenberg suspended the Constitution and started ruling by decree, in 1881, Stambolov moved to Tarnovo, organising mass opposition in support of the very Constitution he would later so often violate himself.

In 1885, when the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia united, Stambolov was already speaker of parliament. He penned Prince Alexander's proclamation that approved unification. When soon afterwards Serbia declared war on Bulgaria, he joined the army.Stambolov's talent to seize the moment shone even brighter in 1886 when Russia forced Prince Alexander to abdicate as a punishment for his refusal to coordinate Bulgaria's foreign policy with the Tsar. Stambolov became a regent and went on a search for a man to sit on the vacant Bulgarian throne. The following year, in a café in Vienna, he identified a candidate that seemed fit for the position: the young Ferdinand Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, a minor nobleman. In 1887, Ferdinand became a prince, and appointed Stefan Stambolov as prime minister.

Stambolov, with his newly established People's Liberal Party, remained in power until 1894. In these seven years, he achieved much, he damaged a lot, and he made a lot of powerful enemies.

Stambolov was the first Bulgarian prime minister who borrowed money from Europe. He spent most of the loans on infrastructure and modernising the army. Railways were built to connect Sofia with Europe and the Bosporus, and the Varna and Burgas ports were enlarged. The Sofia University, Bulgaria's first higher education institution, was founded. He imposed a special law to deal with highway robberies that pestered the countryside, but often used it to crush village protests against taxation.

Claiming that "I haven't killed anybody besides enemies and foes of my Fatherland," he was ruthless with his opponents. Those included a range of people such as the participants in a failed Russian plot that aimed to depose both Prince Ferdinand and Stambolov, and his former colleagues from the Liberal Party. After a unsuccessful assassination attempt against him, in 1891, in which his finance minister got killed in the crossfire, Stambolov was enraged. He took it out on the parliamentary opposition. Under his rule, elections turned violent and opposition newspapers were banned.

Stambolov's foreign policy was equally controversial. He believed that Bulgaria's greatest enemy was not the Ottoman Empire, but Russia that never shied of using its role for Bulgaria's liberation to meddle in its affairs. As for the plight of Bulgarians in Macedonia, Stambolov refused Bulgarian support for an armed rebellion in the region. Instead, he applied soft power to persuade the sultan to appoint more Bulgarian bishops across Macedonia. He thought those would be instrumental in the strengthening the Bulgarian national identity in the region.

Stambolov was a cunning and able politician, but even he could not foresee everything. Prince Ferdinand, the man Stambolov had picked seven years earlier, was no longer satisfied with being in the shadow of his more experienced prime minister. The prince wanted more power and authority. In 1894, Stambolov was embroiled in a sex scandal. He resigned, theatrically. Quite surprisingly, Ferdinand accepted the resignation.

Out of power and with lots of influential foes, Stambolov was vulnerable. At the beginning of 1895 he was already aware that an assassination plot agains him was in the making.

On 15 July 1895, he was attacked in broad daylight in central Sofia. He tried to escape the assassins, but he was caught and severely maimed with a scimitar and a knife. He died three days later.

Who and why did the killing remains a mystery to this day. The alleged killers ran abroad and the only person with an established connection to the murder was cleared in court.

Stambolov's funeral was a disgrace. Army officers were forbidden to attend. The crowd hissed and booed at the funeral procession that included Stambolov's immediate family and a couple of friends, plus the diplomatic community. There were no church bells ringing during the mass, but loud music. Happy people danced the Horo over the grave and some even planned to exhume the body and to hang it. A year later, someone blew the mound up.

When Stambolov was dead and Bulgarian politics moved onward, the image of Stambolov began to change. Under Communism, he was presented in negative light, because of its anti-Russian position. After 1989, owing to his anti-Russian position and his heavy-handed rule, he was haloed as the paragon politician that Bulgaria needed. His grave, which had been overgrown and neglected, was renovated in 1990. In 1999, someone stole the metal portrait of Stambolov. In 2003, it was renovated, with a new bronze bust – the one that was stolen in 2018. Tellingly, this bust's author is sculptor Aleksander Haytov. Today he is affiliated with the VMRO, or Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation, an extreme nationalist party that is a junior partner in the current government. The original VMRO, however, was one of the suspects in Stambolov's killing because of his refusal to fund an insurgency in Macedonia.

Today Stambolov is in the pantheon of Bulgarian statesmen. A plaque on the wall of the National Academy for Theatre and Cinema Arts on Rakovski Street in Sofia marks the place of the 1895 attack against him. In the nearby Kristal Park, a macabre severed head made of bronze marks the spot where the man both acclaimed and despised as a bloody tyrant fell under his killers' long knives.

Stambolov's controversial legacy today includes questions no one has been able to answer: where is the fine line that divides good governance and despotism? Does Bulgaria need a tyrant for its economy to thrive? Is being opposed to foreign meddling in a state's infernal affairs an excuse to suppressing civic freedoms?

These questions sound quite relevant today, but they date back to Stefan Stambolov.

Bulgaria has a number of forts, both genuine ones as in Cherven and recently constructed "restorations" as in Veliko Tarnovo. The country, however, has several examples of a curious type of fortification: the standalone tower.

These were mostly built either in the Middle Ages or during the Ottoman period as fortified residences for local lords who had more than one reason to fear for the safety of their families and their wealth: robbers, bandit raids, the occasional rebellion or a villager with a grudge. With their towering silhouettes, rising on hills above the lives of the ordinary people, these were also visual reminders of their owners' power over the population.

Matochina

The fortification that stands on a dominant hill above Matochina village, on the Bulgarian-Turkish border near Svilengrad, was built in the 12th-14th centuries. It is one of the best preserved examples of late-Mediaeval fortresses in Bulgaria. Even today, its weathered and crumbling walls rise up to 18 m.

Some historians identify the tower as Boukelon, a fortress whose predecessor saw the devastating Goth war with the Romans of 376-382 and an invasion by the Bulgarian Khan Krum in 813. In 1205 it witnessed a decisive battle between Bulgarian light infantry and the heavily armoured knights of the Latin Empire. Kaloyan, the Bulgarian king, captured Baldwin of Flanders and kept him there, the legend goes, before getting him over to Tarnovo. In the 20th and 21st century the tower was excavated and conserved, and can now be visited, if your car survives the heavily potholed road to Matochina.

Melnik

Melnik is famed for its traditional houses, sandstone pyramids and heavy wines. Bulgaria's smallest town, however, is also the home of a tower with a curious history.

It is, somewhat confusingly, known as Bolyarskata Kashta, or the Lord's House. A ruin now, it was constructed in the 13th century, when the maverick Bulgarian lord Alexius Slav made Melnik the centre of his breakaway dominion. The complex remained in use throughout the Ottoman rule, becoming one of the richest and most lavishly decorated mansions in the town.

Inhabited until the beginning of the 20th century, the house was abandoned when economic hardships befell Melnik and the once lively community, thriving on trade and wine production, fell silent. Today the whole complex is a ruin with a commanding view of the town and its stone pyramids.

Rila Monastery

Rila Monastery was established in the 10th century, yet the architecture it is famous for is much later, from the 19th century, with one exception: the massive, 23-metre-high Hrelyu Tower. It was built in 1334-1335 by a local lord to provide shelter for monks and their wealth. The tower proved useful during a number of bandit raids under the Ottomans and even survived the devastating fires that ravaged the monastery in the early 19th century. In more peaceful times, it was used as a prison and an isolation cell for sick and deranged monks.

The tower did not lack basic comforts and amenities: the 3rd and the 4th floor feature latrines. For the modern visitor (the tower is sometimes open and sometimes not) the Hrelyu Tower's most alluring feature is the mediaeval murals in the 5th floor chapel.

The two-storey belfry adjacent to the façade dates from the 19th century.

VratsaVratsa, a quiet town in Bulgaria's northwest, has two old towers. Both were built during the Ottoman domination.

The Meshchii Tower is considered one of the symbols of the city. It is 13.4 m high, its walls are up to 1.5 m thick and it has three residential floors. It was supposedly built in the 16th century by an Ottoman feudal family. Originally, the entrance was 2 m above ground. When more peaceful times arrived, this was walled up and a new entrance was opened at ground level.

At the end of the 19th century, after the erstwhile masters of the tower had departed, it was fitted with a clockwork mechanism.

Kurtpashova Tower is only 11 m high, but it looks like a part of a larger mediaeval castle. It has two residential floors, and was probably built in the 17th century. One hypothesis suggests that it belonged to one Kurt Pasha, a Bulgarian originally named Velko or Valko, who converted to Islam. Both Kurt and Velko/Valko mean "wolf."

Ledenik

Veliko Tarnovo's "mediaeval" fortifications are largely 20th and 21st century restorations. About 7 km from there, however, Ledenik village preserves a piece of genuine defence building. Dating from 1650, the Shemshi Tower rises on a dominating height above a meander of the Yantra River.

The luxury that its inhabitants enjoyed is visible even from the outside, in the finely carved wooden frames of its projecting bay windows. Inside, the tower was furnished in the best traditions of Ottoman luxury. Until recently, when it was part of a hotel and a restaurant, one could even rent a room in the tower. For some time, however, the enterprise has been closed.

A local legend attributes the tower's name to one Shemshi Bey, whose residence in the village had tragic consequences. The lord's son, the story goes, fell in love with a beautiful Bulgarian girl. She would not marry him and so she drank a poison that made her appear to be dead. In a fashion that you are probably already familiar with, upon hearing the news the lord's son committed suicide. While Shemshi Bey grieved, the girl and her brother ran away to Tarnovo. The lord learnt the truth and exacted a harsh revenge: he executed the fugitives' family. Then it was the brother's turn to take revenge (are you still following the story?). He gathered a group of friends and planned to attack the tower. Scared, Shemshi Bey abandoned everything to run for his life to Tarnovo.

Arapovski Monastery

Located on the plain near Asenovgrad, the Arapovski Monastery lacks the protection that monasteries up in the mountains enjoyed, but its architecture compensates for this. The compound looks like a fortress, with strong stone walls and high narrow windows.

The monastery even has a fortified tower in its courtyard.

The monastery was built in the 1850s. Some attribute its construction to a monk. According to others, the initiative and the money belonged to one Angel Voyvoda, a local brigand-cum-revolutionary, whose operations from 1832 to 1862 caused plenty of headache for the Ottomans. The tower still bears his name and is a curious example of massive walls at ground level and rather pleasant living quarters on the upper floor. It is one of the few towers in Bulgaria that can still be visited today.

Kyustendil

Rising up to 15.5 m, the Pirgova Tower in central Kyustendil does not look like much amid the modern structures. In the 15th or the 16th centuries, when it was built, it would have been much more impressive, rising above the squat neighbouring houses.

The Pirgova Tower is a palimpsest of history and cultural influences. Stones from the baths of ancient Pautalia, the Roman city that existed here, were used for its walls. Its name is borrowed from the Greek Pyrgos, or tower.

The tower has storage spaces on the ground floor and living quarters, latrine included.

Teshovo

This end -of-the-road village near Gotse Delchev has preserved the remains of yet another tower of unknown origins. The tower is 13.5 m high, but in the 19th century it was higher. Like other towers built in the Ottoman period, it had thick walls and relatively comfortable residential floors. The time of its construction, however, is anyone's guess and historians disagree on whether it was the residence of an Ottoman lord or was a part of an Ottoman system of fortified communication towers in the region.

By the 19th century the local memories about its past were already lost. The tower's heavy door was dismantled and installed in the covered market of Serres, now in Greece. Destruction was helped by locals who used its stones for their church and houses. As late as the 1970s the village bakery was built with construction materials from the tower.

It now stands abandoned, right in the middle of the village, surrounded by houses whose inhabitants have long died or moved elsewhere. Owing to its remoteness and the almost complete lack of visitors the Teshovo tower is perhaps the most atmospheric in modern Bulgaria.

High Beam is a series of articles, initiated by Vagabond Magazine, with the generous support of the America for Bulgaria Foundation, that aims to provide details and background of places, cultural entities, events, personalities and facts of life that are sometimes difficult to understand for the outsider in the Balkans. The ultimate aim is the preservation of Bulgaria's cultural heritage – including but not limited to archaeological, cultural and ethnic diversity. The statements and opinionsexpressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the America for Bulgaria Foundation and its partners.

In the most glorious years of its past, when it was the capital of mediaeval Bulgaria, from 1185-1393, Veliko Tarnovo was a centre of military power and political intrigue, of busy commerce and even busier administrators. It was also the seat of the patriarch, the head of the Bulgarian Church.…

There, icons were painted, books were written and the latest ideas in medieval philosophy were discussed.

When the Ottomans came, all of this came to a sudden and brutal end. The monasteries around Tarnovo were destroyed and, while most later recovered, they were mere shadows of their former selves. This began to change in the 19th century. Bulgarians were getting richer and more eager to spend some money (a lot of it, actually) for the salvation of their souls. They donated generously for the restoration of monasteries and churches. In 1839 and 1856 two decrees of the sultan declared, at least theoretically, all religions and nations in the realm to be equal. The old ban on construction of new churches and monasteries was over, and the Bulgarians grabbed the opportunity.

The network of monasteries around Tarnovo became stronger. Abuzz with monks and pilgrims, they again became centres of culture, although not as sophisticated as in the Middle Ages. As the Bulgarians grew restless under the Ottomans, some monasteries became hotbeds of revolutionary activity.

When Communism arrived, in 1944, hard times returned. The numbers of monks and nuns dwindled, and then came underfunding and neglect, particularly in smaller, not so important abodes. Today, the monasteries again attract visitors and some have been renovated, with different degrees of aesthetic success.

About 15 monasteries are located in the environs of Tarnovo. We offer you here some of the most interesting ones.

Preobrazhenski Monastery

Boasting a turbulent history, amazing Revival Period art and a stunning location in the Tarnovo Gorge, the Preobrazhenski Monastery is the star on our list. Founded at an unknown date in the Middle Ages, in the 14th century it supposedly became the darling of Sarah-Theodora, King Ivan Aleksandar's second wife. The monastery suffered the inevitable fate of pillage and destruction during the Ottoman invasion, but unlike its brethren, many of which soon recovered, it remained silent for centuries.

In 1825, a Bulgarian monk finally restored it. Close to Tarnovo yet still relatively isolated, the monastery soon began to attract bright and bold thinkers. Its community was engaged in both the 1835 Velcho's Plot and the 1876 April Uprising. Kolyu Ficheto built its church, in 1835, and Zahari Zograf, Bulgaria's best painter of the period, decorated it. He left on its walls a rare image, a self-portrait (below), and an impressive, philosophical Wheel of Life scene (above).

Preobrazhenski Monastery's location at the foot of steep rocks overhanging the Yantra River is as dangerous as it is picturesque. In 1991, some rocks collapsed, smashing several buildings and just missing the church. The danger of sudden destruction remains.

Holy Trinity Monastery

In spite of its location on the cliffs opposite the Preobrazhenski Monastery, the Holy Trinity appears drab. It was built from scratch after a devastating earthquake in 1913 ruined the old compound, a church designed by Kolyu Ficheto and painted by Zahari Zograf included.

Even now, however, it has its quirks both past and present. A 2nd century Roman inscription marking the border between the provinces of Moesia and Thrace is built into the church porch and a pagan altar dedicated to Zeus is inside. Both were brought from Roman sites in the nearby plains.

The monastery's mediaeval past is unclear. Some say it was founded in the 10th century and others suggest that Theodosius of Tarnovo established it when the Ottomans came too close to Tarnovo and the Kilifarevski Monastery had to be evacuated. Nothing is certain, though.

In 1821, the monastery was already there. Its monks, however, were forced to flee. When its reconstruction and revival began, in the 1840s, a secret trove of documents was discovered. It contained donation charters to the monastery issued by 18th century Wallachian princes. Some of the documents mentioned previous donations made even earlier, in the 17th century.

The Holy Trinity Monastery is also known as the Patriarch One. Some claim (yet another theory!) that it is because it was founded by Patriarch Evtimiy of Tarnovo, in the 14th century. Whether this is actually true is anyone's guess.

Since 1948 the monastery has been a nunnery, and a strict one: men in shorts are not allowed to enter.

Kapinovski Monastery

In summer, Kapinovski Monastery can get overwhelmingly crowded and noisy. The reason? Its proximity to the cool waters of the Veselina River and a deep pool particularly beloved of the locals, who like to camp there. Local bikers also claim the spot, with a large gathering at the beginning of the motoring season.

Still, the Kapinovski Monastery is remarkable. Established in 1272, destroyed during the Ottoman invasion, and restored and destroyed and restored, it now looks like a fortress, with strong stone walls and cavernous entrances. The complex you see today was built in 1835-1864, when the monastery was thriving. The magnificent carved icon door in the church, however, is earlier.

The monastery's history includes Sofroniy Vrachanski, a seminal figure of the Bulgarian Revival, who was the abbot there in 1794. He brought with himself a rarity of the day, a hand-written copy of A History of the Slavs-Bulgarians, Bulgaria's first modern history book. Later, in the 19th century, a number of revolutionaries, national hero Vasil Levski included, used the monastery for shelter.

Kilifarevski MonasteryIts cosy, 19th century architecture of wooden verandas is misleading. In its medieval past, Kilifarevski Monastery was a large institution. It was founded in 1348 by Theodosius of Tarnovo, one of the brightest minds of Bulgaria, who promoted Hesychasm, a mystic teaching aimed at salvation through meditation. So, Kilifarevski Monastery became a major religious centre with a busy scriptorium and a school claiming students such as Evtimiy, who would become Bulgaria's last patriarch before the fall to the Ottomans, and Cyprian, future metropolitan of Kiev. All three later became saints.

When the Ottomans arrived, the monastery was deemed so important that the king himself donated money for its fortifications, to no avail. The monastery returned to life in the 15th century, and was again destroyed when it gave shelter to Bulgarian rebels in 1596.

The Kilifarevski Monastery you visit today is about 400 m away from the remains of its mediaeval predecessor. It was founded in 1718, but destruction during bandit raids explains why the present complex is later. Its church was built in 1840 by Kolyu Ficheto, Bulgaria's top master builder of the time. He was humble or practical enough – or both – to preserve parts of the original construction: a portion of the altar walls and two side chapels still covered with 18th century frescoes.

Plakovski MonasteryA neighbour of the Kapinovski Monastery, the Plakovski Monastery is smaller and calmer, and it is easy to miss it. However, it has its own claim to historical pride. After its mediaeval origin, Ottoman destruction and 15th century reconstruction, in 1835 it became a centre of the so-called Velcho's Plot, an unsuccessful bid by local Bulgarians to bid the sultan farewell. The rebels were killed, and the monastery was reduced to ruins, though it soon rose again. Today some claim that the 1845 church and the belfry are Kolyo Ficheto's work.

High Beam is a series of articles, initiated by Vagabond Magazine, with the generous support of the America for Bulgaria Foundation, that aims to provide details and background of places, cultural entities, events, personalities and facts of life that are sometimes difficult to understand for the outsider in the Balkans. The ultimate aim is the preservation of Bulgaria's cultural heritage – including but not limited to archaeological, cultural and ethnic diversity. The statements and opinionsexpressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the America for Bulgaria Foundation and its partners.

Bulgaria has had an uneasy transition from Communism to democracy as a result of which it continues to experience painful pangs related to its recent past. Unlike other nations in the former Warsaw Pact Bulgaria never made a proper de-Communisation effort. Top Communist-era officials and thousands of apparatchiks continued, and some still continue, to hold public offices. The process of lustration – banning members of the Communist Party and its agents from holding public offices for a period of time, like it was effected in Czechoslovakia and East Germany, while providing sufficient checks and balances for everyone affected in the process never happened here. Logically, where there has been no purgatory after a despotic regime, later there is bound to be a witch-hunt.

Is this what has been going on during the past 10 years with the workings of the Commission for the Declassification of the Documents and Identifying Bulgarian Citizens for Links With the Former State Security and the Intelligence Services of the Bulgarian People's Army, popularly referred to as the Dossiers Commission or just the Commission?

The Dossiers Commission is a body, set up under the tripartite coalition government in 2007, which was supposed to probe holders or would-be holders of public offices, which it defines according to its statutes, against the databases of the former Darzhavna Sigurnost, or State Security. In case it detects someone has been listed as an "operative" or an "agent" it discloses that individual's name and his or her file to the general public. Those affected can object after their files have been made public. Significantly, they can sue the Commission only over breaches of protocol.

They cannot sue over the content of the files.

Legally, the Commission does not claim anyone was an "agent" or a "secret collaborator." Its role is to announce that it has discovered papers indicating someone had links to State Security. The Commission conducts no investigation whether what has been mentioned in the papers is true or false. Nor does it seek to verify whether any of the alleged activities indeed took place.

Those being probed are past or current MPs as well as people standing for public offices. Included are members of professional organisations such as lawyers and journalists, media owners, famous sportsmen, even… debtors of failed banks.

The Commission has no lustration powers. It says its purposes are moral.

It passes no judgement. It leaves the judgement to Facebook.

"SABINA"

At the end of March, one of the Commission's reports stated that Julia Kristeva, the French intellectual who was born in Bulgaria but has lived in France since 1965, fell in that category. She had been listed, back in 1971, as an "agent" for State Security, codenamed Sabina. Kristeva was reported to have been "recruited" while already in Paris, in 1971.

The "revelation" caused a significant stir in Bulgarian society. Predictably, a vocal group of people identifying themselves as pro-democracy intellectuals took the Commission's findings at face value and were quick to condemn Kristeva.

Others preferred to trust Kristeva, who immediately rejected the allegations calling them "absurd" and "grotesque," rather than the Communist-era operatives who wrote the reports.

The overwhelming majority of Bulgaria's population, who are preoccupied with survival in what is Europe's poorest, most corrupt and least free country, obviously had no idea who Kristeva was. What will stick in their minds is that someone of high international stature, obviously a liberal intellectual – yet another liberal intellectual – has turned out to have been a Communist stooge.

Julia Kristeva is a philosopher, literary critic, psychoanalyst and feminist, who has worked alongside Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Jacques Lacan and another Bulgarian-born French intellectual, Tsvetan Todorov. She has been given a bunch of French and international awards including Commander of the Legion of Honour, Commander of the Order of Merit, the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought and the Vaclav Havel Prize. Her impact on French feminism has been huge, with shockwaves reaching far beyond the borders of France.

Julia Kristeva has been named one of the 20th century's most important thinkers. Kristeva, who is now 76, continues to give lectures, notably at Harvard and Columbia, where she is usually mobbed by students and academics.

So how could Julia Kristeva's name end up in the annals of the former Bulgarian State Security? And why did the Commission, 29 years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, release what it considered to be genuine proof that Julia Kristeva was a Communist agent?

REPRESSION

To understand the intricacies pertaining to these questions and to fathom the highly polarised public reaction to the Commission's "revelations" one needs to know in better detail what State Security used to be and what became of it post-1989. How the current Dossiers Commission operates and whom it benefits are central issues.

The Bulgarian State Security was established immediately after the Second World War which, in the case of Bulgaria, ended with the imposition of hardline Communism. It was modelled entirely on the Soviet secret service, the KGB. In its early years it was in charge of suppression, in most cases very brutal, of any dissent. Thousands of people belonging to the pre-war intelligentsia suffered at the hands of State Security which frequently arrested, tortured and "disappeared" individuals without any trial or court order – not that a trial and a court order meant anything at all in what was going to become the Soviet Union's most loyal satellite in Eastern Europe. The late Tsvetan Todorov, with whom Julia Kristeva worked in France, described succinctly those years in his 1992 Voices From the Gulag: Life and Death in Communist Bulgaria (published in English by Pennsylvania State University Press in 1999).

Through the years, the State Security apparatus expanded. State Security had several directorates each tasked with various intelligence and counterintelligence activities. Those included "wet jobs" abroad as well as a political police at home. Some of the international operations included, but were not limited to, the assassination of dissident writer Georgi Markov, in London in 1978, and the attempt to kill Pope John Paul II in Rome, in 1981.

State Security in those years was omnipresent and omnipenetrating. Each government company, professional organisation, every dollar shop, even every bar at Sunny Beach – especially every bar at Sunny Beach – had one or more State Security operatives in charge of overseeing the ideological standards were being adhered to. Every media had what was called a Special Department where a State Security operative worked to ensure "state secrets" were not promulgated. Every Bulgarian citizen who travelled to the West was vetted by State Security. Life in Bulgaria was life with State Security. The situation was almost literally Orwellian. This partly explains why totalitarian Bulgaria never had a Lech Walesa or a Vaclav Havel. It did not even have a Doina Cornea.

After the fall of Communism, State Security was disbanded – its infamous political police ceased to exist just a few weeks after the fall of Communist dictator Todor Zhivkov. The whole of the Interior Ministry, under which State Security operated, was "depoliticised." Its employees were given a choice: quit the Communist Party or leave the force. One famous example of a then young officer in the Interior Ministry Fire Department, who preferred to remain a member of the BKP rather than keep his job, was one Boyko Borisov. He resigned and went on into the protection business of the 1990s. He has been prime minister of Bulgaria since 2008.

In 1993, Kjell Engelbrekt a scholar who at the time worked for Radio Free Europe in Munich and is now a professor at the Swedish Defence University, explained in detail both the structure of Bulgaria's former State Security and its main methods. Engelbrekt described it as both "corrupt" and "unusually sinister." It was sinister in that it resorted to monstrous methods of eliminating politically divergent individuals – like the minuscule pellet full of poison that was shot into Georgi Markov on Waterloo Bridge in London. And it was corrupt in the Balkan sort of way – with its intricate network of personal likes and dislikes, of nepotism, of complicated family relationships, of revenge, of small favours being exchanged and penalties being dealt out in case anyone failed to oblige, and so on and so forth.

Many files pertaining to State Security, including the volumes on Georgi Markov, were destroyed in the months after Communism collapsed. Gen Atanas Semerdzhiev, who served as Bulgaria's vice president in 1990-1992, was responsible for ordering the destruction of the documents. Ten years later he was charged and sentenced to imprisonment. However, Bulgaria's Supreme Court, in the 2000s, repealed the sentence. The case was terminated in 2006.

FAILURE TO BRING ON JUSTICE

Through the 1990s the Bulgarian state made a number of legal attempts to bring to justice some particularly brutal operatives of the former State Security, including reportedly sadistic prison guards in the country's notorious gulag system. None of them were successful and the much-publicised trials did not result in prison sentences.

There have been several attempts to declassify whatever remained of the State Security archives. After the initial document-burning, which some experts claim went on in a rather haphazard manner, the Bulgarians were exposed to the usual Balkan mixture of allegations, conspiracy theories and pure nonsense pertaining to the dossiers. Originals or copies of the dossiers reportedly changed hands in Sofia's Slaveykov Square, as did, at the time, pirated CDs. The archives were kept in several locations which had different access regulations. Rumours of tampering with the existing documents were widespread.

An agency to declassify the dossiers, which was appointed by the government in 1997, produced a list of State Security operatives in high positions, but only a few names were read out in parliament following a ban by the Supreme Court. A second agency was established in 2001 but was terminated the following year.

The current Commission has been in existence since 2007 and operates under statutes adopted by the tripartite coalition preceding the ascent to power of Boyko Borisov's GERB. It is composed of representatives of all political parties. Since its inception in 2007, and contrary to the statutes which mandate a time limit to anyone serving on it, it has been headed by one and the same person: Evtim Kostadinov, a Communist-era policeman from the northeastern town of Dobrich and an MP for the BSP.

REPORTS AT ODDS WITH LIFE

It is important to note that the Commission works exclusively with documents. "Registration cards" that bear no signature of an alleged collaborator, without any other proof (because it was supposedly destroyed) are enough for the Commission to declare a "link" between the individual in question and State Security. Thus the Commission can and does declare people's "association" with the former State Security on the basis of… missing documents.

The Commission's task is to verify that these cards are "genuine" in the sense that they are originals. It does not seek to establish whether what was written on them in fact corresponds with reality, nor whether any actual harm was done to anyone as a result of any alleged activities.

Why people’s names ended on State Security "registration cards" has been the subject of many discussions. State Security is known to have fabricated dossiers for a plethora of reasons. One was to blackmail people. Another was to ensure those allowed to travel to the West would return. Those already in the West could be listed as "collaborators" in order to make sure their families would stay calm - and put. Yet another was to please superiors: a part of the job for State Security operatives was to recruit new collaborators, and when they couldn’t, they just put down names of friends and acquaintances. University professors found out they had been listed as "collaborators" because they taught Bulgarian language summer classes to foreigners. One academic discovered he was listed as a "keeper" of a "safehouse" because he had given the key to his attic to a friend to spend a few hours with a girl in. The "friend" had been a State Security collaborator.

It is difficult to understand life in a totalitarian society unless you have lived in it. Imagine the following: you stand in front of a State Security man who holds a "declaration of allegiance" in one hand. In the other one he has your passport. Your passport to the Free World. Which one would you choose?

CONTROVERSIES

Critics of the commission say that acting in this way turns the Commission into a mouthpiece for the former State Security. It represents the State Security's standpoint alone without any attempt to verify whether there is any actual truth in them.

Through the years, the Bulgarian public opinion has been increasingly polarised in its attitudes to both the former State Security archives and the ways the Dossiers Commission operates. Some say that there was nothing wrong with State Security because it protected Bulgaria's national interests during the Cold War. This is plainly wrong. Bulgaria was, to put it mildly, a vassal of the Soviet Union. In many cases, especially pertaining to foreign and defence policy, it strictly toed the Kremlin line. If Bulgaria had any national interests during the Cold War they were to overthrow Communism – which State Security was supposed to protect.

Others claim that State Security was the employer of a highly professional force, Bulgarianised mini-James Bonds of high professionalism and intelligence. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of State Security's employees were sometimes semi-literate pen-pushers who wrote huge piles of meaningless reports that now seem comical. The real drama is that these operatives had the power to influence the lives and the careers of citizens. And the drama of post-Communist Bulgaria is that they are being taken at face value.

So, how could Julia Kristeva, the French intellectual, manage to get herself involved in this?

WHAT'S REAL AND WHAT'S NOT

Looking at Kristeva's "dossier," which the Commission conveniently posted online for the hacks to see and draw their own conclusions, the immediate answer is she hasn't. The file contains not one document signed or written by her. It does contain copies of personal correspondence to her parents in Bulgaria that State Security intercepted and monitored. The reports about her alleged meetings with a State Security operative in Paris at the time are written in uneducated Bulgarian. The man, code-named Lyubomirov, had trouble spelling "semiotics." A Bulgarian second-rate operative in charge of recruiting and keeping contact with a world-famous philosopher? No. Rather a clerk justifying his salary and expenses in France.

According to Yovo Nikolov, a senior journalist for Kapital newspaper in Sofia with significant experience with the State Security archives, Julia Kristeva's "dossier" is at least odd. Nikolov asserts that there are many "gaps" in Kristeva's file. The most obvious is that there is not one trace of anything that she has done in her own hand in France that might have benefited State Security back in Bulgaria. The State Security reports describe real or imaginary meetings with Kristeva at which she said nothing of significance. On one occasion she "informed" that the poet, Louis Aragon, distanced himself from the French Communist Party, a piece of "news" that had been all over the French newspapers for months. The operative who wrote the Kristeva file ended his reports stating that Kristeva was not reliable and she failed to appear at meetings and keep appointments. The most important thing, notes Nikolov, is that throughout the file Kristeva is being referred to mainly as a "subject of investigation" rather than as a "secret collaborator."

Nikolov also stresses that the hypothesis that the "dossier" had been purged is "attractive" but the register of documents attached to the file and the actual documents present in the file fails to corroborate it.

Nikolov's opinion is disputed. One man who disagrees is the German writer of Bulgarian origin, Ilija Trojanow. Writing in the Frankfurter Allgemaine Zeitung, Trojanow has no doubts that Kristeva was indeed an "agent" for the Communists and should be condemned. According to Trojanow, the pages in the "dossier" had been renumbered at least twice, which indicates that some pages were missing. Trojanow thinks that the missing pages were the ones that had Kristeva's writing on them.

Picking from these two standpoints a significant number of international and domestic intellectuals have produced their own theories and counter-theories. What has ensued is the sadly familiar Balkan morass where the difference between right and wrong, between good and bad, between truth and lies, between a victim and a victimiser gets obscured by the overwhelming load of opinions and counter-opinions, of real and construed memories, of real and, yes, fake news.GOSPEL TRUTH?

Those who consider the "findings" of the Commission the gospel truth insist that Kristeva – and everyone else who gets a mention in the State Security files – should be morally condemned to eternal damnation. There are others, however, who see that the former State Security in many instances created a fictitious reality, often in order to justify its staff salaries. That "reality" had nothing to do with real life.

Simulating meaningful work was not alien to the former State Security just as it was de rigueur for Bulgarian state-employed workers, officials, Communist Party apparatchiks – practically everyone who lived in Communist Bulgaria. In theory, it was a society where "everyone should be getting according to their needs whilst contributing according to their abilities." In actual life it was a system where workers simulated work while the state simulated it paid them. One of the most enduring legacies of Communism is this "culture of simulation" – quite visible in Bulgaria of 2018.

Kristeva has lived in France since 1965, but never lost touch with Bulgaria. She had close ties to Palais de l'Elysée and personally to the former French President Francois Mitterrand. In early 1989, Mitterrand made a visit to then still Communist Bulgaria. Surprisingly, he invited a number of Bulgarians to breakfast at the French Embassy in Sofia, a meeting that historians now see as seminal for the downfall of Communism in this country 10 months later. In attendance were philosopher Zhelyu Zhelev, who later became the first president of democratic Bulgaria; satirist Radoy Ralin, painter Svetlin Rusev, writer Yordan Radichkov, poetess Blaga Dimitrova, journalist Koprinka Chervenkova and several others. Most of them belonged to the just founded Club for the Support of Glasnost and Perestroyka, Bulgaria's then only pro-democracy grassroots organisation, closely monitored and repressed by State Security.

Julia Kristeva accompanied Mitterrand. In fact, she probably helped organise the breakfast. In 1995 she was invited, and accepted, to serve on the editorial board of a small literary newspaper. It was that job that prompted the Commission to probe into her "murky" past.

Who benefits from her "exposure" as a Communist-era "collaborator"? Is it the general public, provided the "revelations" by the Commission create as much confusion as they throw light on the recent past? Is it the victims of State Security or their victimisers? Does the Commission serve its declared moral purposes if it it does not discern between the dangerous State Security operatives, the Communist killers and torturers, and the doctors, lawyers and journalists who went along because they had to get along? Or the people whose names ended in the "dossiers" because State Security operatives simulated fulfilling their quotas for new recruits?

Considering the extremely varied public response to the Julia Kristeva episode some unpleasant truths emerge. First, a world-famous intellectual has been put in the rather Kafkaesque situation best described with the Bulgarian witticism that in order to prove your sister is not a whore, first you have to prove that you have no sister at all. Then, 29 years after the fall of Communism, some Bulgarians prefer to trust semi-literate State Security operatives rather than a world authority of impeccable standing and reputation. The result is that a significant amount of public energy goes into philosophising who Julia Kristeva had coffee with in Paris, in 1971, rather than the much more important issues of the day, including the (mis)deeds of the current rulers.

Many of the Bulgarian guests at that famous breakfast on 20 January 1989 are now dead. Yet, some are still around. Koprinka Chervenkova, who has headed the Kultura newspaper since the 1990s comments on the case of Julia Kristeva: "This is a farce; yet another example of the failings of the Commission and the bad law that directs it." Chervenkova suffered directly from State Security in the sunset days of Communism because she refused to toe the Communist Party line. She adds: "Both the Commission and the law should be immediately ditched."

However, this is not very likely. A few days after the Julia Kristeva episode a conference was held to discuss the future of the former State Security archives and of the Dossiers Commission. A beaming Tsvetan Tsvetanov, GERB's top lieutenant, assured that the Commission would continue to operate for at least "three-four years" – or until the next general election. Its "findings," apparently, continue to be a powerful political tool in the Bulgaria of 2018.

In the meantime, it will probably remain a mystery forever why State Security had to intercept and read Julia Kristeva's postcards to her parents. Were its well-trained and highly intelligent operatives not supposed to deal with the correspondence of Communism’s enemies rather than of its agents?